South African writing is due to receive a fresh injection of inspiration from the National Arts Festival with the launch of a new initiative, Writing Beyond the Fringe.

Writers who have written at least one script that has previously been staged on the Fringe programme of the National Arts Festival qualify to participate in this exciting project.

Four South African writers will be given the opportunity to take their literary works beyond the South African borders.

The project is a partnership between the National Arts Festival and the deBuren and Passa Porta literary projects in Belgium and The Netherlands.

Each of the four selected writers will write a new story that reflects on the theme, Remapping the World. The focal point of the story should be a character whose life has been remapped by either local or global changes of the last decades.

The writers will be invited to read the stories in front of an audience at the 2009 National Arts Festival. In addition, the Brussels-based deBuren Project will pay the four writers three thousand Euros each. The works will also be translated into French, Spanish and Dutch.

The four stories will be broadcast by Radio Netherlands Worldwide on Radio Books, a series of recorded stories specially written to be listened to and not to appear in print.

The stories, which should last between 20 - 30 minutes (approximately 5000 words), are read aloud by the authors in front of an audience once only.

After the reading, they are broadcast on the radio and distributed via the Internet, where they can be listened to or downloaded free of charge.

One of the four writers will also be considered for an invitation to participate in a fully sponsored one-month writer’s residency at the Passa Porta Writer's Festival that will take place in Brussels during 2009.

About the National Arts Festival:

Entering its 35th year in 2009, the Festival began in 1974 and has grown to be one of the leading arts festivals in Africa.

Its objectives are to deliver excellence; encourage innovation and development in the arts by providing a platform for both established and emerging South African artists; create opportunities for collaboration with international artists; and build new audiences.

The 2009 Grahamstown National Arts Festival runs from 2 – 11 July 2009.

Read all information about the 2009 Grahamstown Festival.