It’s with great excitement that the Jakes Gerwel Foundation announces the chosen candidates for the 2026 Bosberg Book Writing residency!
Candice Jantjies, Chantal Jansen van Vuuren, Herschelle Benjamin, Makgethwa Phala, Siphosethu Siwaphiwe Zazela, Wilmarie Europa, Wilmot Arendse and Xabiso Vili will attend an intensive development programme where the writer is assisted in submitting their manuscript for publication to an appropriate publisher.
This flagship project is named after the beautiful mountain range right next to Paulet House. Other names for the Bosberg are Nojoli or Khelelela. Years ago, when the amaXhosa would pass buckets of water hand to hand from the peak of the mountain, they would sing this song: Khelelela.
Congratulations to our candidates! May the time you spend at our house of stories be a time of growth and inspiration. We look forward to following your writing projects closely.
Dit is met groot opgewondenheid dat die Jakes Gerwel Stigting die gekose kandidate vir die 2026 Bosberg Boekskryf mentorskapsprogram aankondig.
Candice Jantjies, Chantal Jansen van Vuuren, Herschelle Benjamin, Makgethwa Phala, Siphosethu Siwaphiwe Zazela, Wilmarie Europa,Wilmot Arendse en Xabiso Vili sal by Paulet House in KwaNojoli ’n intensiewe ontwikkelingsprogram bywoon wat hulle sal help om hulle manuskrip vir publikasie by ’n gepaste uitgewer in te dien.
Hierdie vlagskipprojek het sy naam te danke aan die pragtige bergreeks reg langs Paulet Huis. Ander name vir die Bosberg is Nojoli of Khelelela. Jare gelede, wanneer die amaXhosa emmers water van die piek van die berg hand vir hand aangee, sou hulle hierdie liedjie sing: Khelelela.
Baie geluk aan ons kandidate! Mag die tyd wat julle deurbring by ons huis van stories ’n tyd van groei en inspirasie wees. Ons sien daarna uit om julle skryfwerk te volg.
Candice Jantjies is from Kraaifontein. She obtained her honours degree in Journalism and a BA degree in Language and Culture from Stellenbosch University. She works as a publicist for the Toyota Stellenbosch Woordfees and as a content manager for Stellenbosch University’s Words Open Worlds (WOW) initiative. Previously, she was an arts journalist at Netwerk24 and the national Afrikaans daily newspapers, and she still freelances in the profession. Her work was recently published in the short story anthology Draaie, swaaie en afdwaalpaaie (NB Publishers, 2024), in the first Diana Ferrus Prize anthology, Ons kom van hier (2025), and in the collection Tyd is ’n b**ksem en ander belaglik lekker tekste (2022).
Born and raised in Eswatini and educated in Piet Retief, Mpumalanga, where she currently lives with her husband, Chantal Jansen van Vuuren has had a love for art and literature since primary school. Although she always wanted to be an author, her career path followed a different direction, and she currently works for a forestry company. “I hope that someday I can use writing and art to inspire people, help them heal, and feel less alone and more understood,” she explains.
Herschelle Benjamin holds an MA in Drama and Theatre Studies (2019) from Stellenbosch University. In 2018, he made his debut as one of Artscape’s New Voices with his piece Korreltjie Kop Klong is my Dood. In the same year, he received a Teksmark writer’s bursary from Kunste Onbeperk and NATi and also won the Elizabeth MacLennan International Scholarship to attend the University of Edinburgh’s Summer School. His debut drama, In Slavenhuis 39, opened in 2019 at the Toyota Stellenbosch Woordfees, where it was awarded the Woordtrofee Award for Best Emerging Artist and also nominated for the kykNET Fiësta Award – Best New Afrikaans Text. In 2021, In Slavenhuis 39 was published by Protea Boekhuis and won a South African Literary Award (SALA) for Best Debut Author.
Makgethwa Phala (writing as Khethiwe Makgetha) is a fiction writer and poet. She enjoys telling stories that reflect and resonate with ordinary South Africans, and has been publishing short stories and novels online since she was 12 years old. She has independently published the Young Adult novels A Kiss for Maya and Love and Other Equations under the pseudonym Katherine Key. When she’s not writing stories to quench her creativity, she is working as a freelance writer and graphic designer. Currently, she is in her final year of a BCom degree at the University of Johannesburg. Her favourite pastime is watching Korean and Chinese dramas in her room.
Siphosethu Siwaphiwe Zazela is a writer and legal scholar. Raised in the former Transkei in the Eastern Cape, he was steeped in Xhosa culture, rites and traditions from an early age. He has always felt that underneath the traditions and culture were human stories. Practising in land reform, mining law and constitutional law at one of South Africa’s largest law firms, however, showed him that human stories are often intellectualised, hidden behind court judgments and academic texts. Zazela seeks to use the art of storytelling as activism – to make visible the people behind the legal and academic discourse. He writes both creatively and academically, and has published academic texts on land reform and constitutional law.
Wilmarie Europa, who is visually impaired, completed a BA in Communication Science at Unisa’s College of Human Sciences in 2018. In 2024, she graduated with a BA Honours in Media Studies, also from Unisa. She is a passionate storyteller who uses this medium to protest and drive change. As a freelancer for newspapers, a highlight of her career was having her first opinion piece published in Rapport, as well as being a runner-up in the AVBOB Poetry Competition in 2023.
Wilmot Arendse, who hails from Cape Town, is passionate about reading and writing. Wilmot’s literary and artistic works are featured in the critically acclaimed books, Writing my City (2019), and in Home is Where the Art is (2021), which was released by Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA). He was also part of the first cohort of the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation’s Fellowship Programme Workshop in 2023.
Xabiso Vili is a writer, performer and new-media artist whose work moves between page, stage and technology. His writing blends magical realism, ancestry and political urgency to probe memory, ritual, and forms of resistance. He was crowned the 2022 World Poetry Slam Champion and listed on the Mail & Guardian Top 200 Young South Africans. His work appears in anthologies including Yesterdays and Imagining Realities and the Poetic Egalitarianism collection. Villi’s projects include the Re/Member Your Descendants extended-reality (XR) work and the projection mapping installation Chosi Chosi (Paris). His debut poetry collection Laughing in My Father’s Voice (2018; 2023) and the co-authored Young Adult novella The Deep State Interchange (2021) demonstrate his range across forms.
