Karoo Roads IV
Karoo Roads IV at the Printers!
Aug
By Chris Marais
Photographs by Julienne du Toit
My co-author, travelling partner and wife of long standing, Julienne du Toit, cut her journalism teeth at the Johannesburg Star back in the late 1980s.
A decade earlier, I was across the city at the Rand Daily Mail, working as a night-shift reporter.
Both of us remember how our prospective buildings shook, when the massive presses downstairs began to print the first editions of our newspapers. You just knew there was a huge beast below, like an awakening dragon in a deep cave, and that it possessed enormous power.
So these days, all those years later, we relish a trip down to Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth, or simple GQ, as they call it on the street) to Cadar Printers at North End, each time one of our Karoo books is readied for printing.
We stand around the sleek machines with Cadar’s master printer, Kurt Terblanche, and Robert Prideaux who co-ordinates each of our publishing projects. Jules and I listen to their technical explanations while our eyes dart over the layout spreads and we await the arrival of the book cover.
There is nothing quite like watching the presses start to roll, and seeing lithographic printer Gareth Hiles picking out the first spread, checking to see if it needs more cyan or magenta.
“So why do you go to all the trouble of a 600km round-trip?” some of our friends want to know.
The answer is simple. When there’s a new child on the way, you want to be close at hand.
And that’s just how it is with the imminent arrival of Karoo Roads IV: In Faraway Places, our 8th Karoo book. Possibly our most beloved but, like good publishing parents, we reserve judgment on the best child in the family.
Karoo Roads IV arrives at our storage facility on Monday, September 9. An author-signed first-edition copy of the book will cost you only R350 (including VAT and courier within South Africa).
This book is also sold as part of the Karoo Quartet (Karoo Roads I – IV) special package: (R960 including VAT and courier within South Africa.
For inquiries, please contact Julie at julie@karoospace.co.za
