Rustum Kozain

Curriculum Vitae

September 2014 (10 pages including cover page) 2

Biographical Details

Full Name: Rustum Kozain

Date of birth: 10 August 1966

Nationality: South African

Health: Good

Criminal Record: None

Languages: Fully bilingual in English and Afrikaans

Computer literacy: Above-average to advanced computer literacy; fast learner of new software.

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Education

August 1994 – May 1995: Two semesters as Fulbright student, Master of Fine Art (Poetry), Bowling Green State University, USA (GPA 4.00)

1991 – June 1994: M.A., Department of English, University of Cape Town; by dissertation. Title: “Contemporary English Oral Poetry by Black Poets in Great Britain and South : A Comparison Between Linton Kwesi Johnson and Mzwakhe Mbuli” (220+ pages)

1991: Semester course in creative writing with Tom Raworth, University of Cape Town

1990: University of Cape Town, B.A. Honours in English (first class pass)

1989: University of Cape Town, Higher Diploma in Education (Postgraduate) Secondary; qualified to teach English and Afrikaans at secondary-school level

1988: University of Cape Town, Bachelor of Arts. Major in English. Other courses: Afrikaans 1; Afrikaans & Nederlands 2; Cultural History of Western Europe (1 & 2); Physics 1; Religious Studies 1; Philosophy 2 (Individual and Social Ethics, semester course)

1981 – 1984: Noorder Paarl Secondary, Paarl; Matriculation exemption with subjects: English, Afrikaans, Biology, Mathematics, Physical Science and History.

Work Experience

Teaching:

Lecturer, Department of English, UCT, full-time, 2002-2004; included teaching literature, film, and creative writing. Administrative duties included convening courses: overseeing a course and managing the administration between students and lecturers who teach in the course. Lecture topics included Modernism, the poetry of T.S. Eliot, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Bessie Head’s Maru, selected topics in film. Seminar topics included the films of Spike Lee, the poetry of Derek Walcott, selected topics in postcolonial studies, issues in race and representation in .

Other duties included six months as acting head of Creative Writing Department. 4

Assistant-Lecturer, Department of English, UCT, full-time, 1998-2001; duties as above.

Other teaching experience include:

External examiner, three creative writing theses (poetry), academic year ending 2013, University of Grahamstown

Curriculum adviser, undergraduate Humanities students, UCT, 2003

Workshop leader, creative writing for high school students, Goethe Institute, Cape Town, 16 June 2000

Tutor (part-time), Introduction to African Studies, Centre for African Studies, UCT, 1995, 1996

Tutor (part-time), English I, UCT, 1991 — 1993, 1995 — 1997

Tutor (part-time), First-year English Written Composition, Department of English, Bowling Green State University, August to December 1994; textbook-based

Tutor, Professional Communications Unit, UCT, February to June 1994

Residence tutor, The Woolsack Residence, UCT, English and Afrikaans, 1991

Facilitator, English I. tutors workshop, UCT, February 1993

Work experience – 2005 to present:

‘Curator’ (Selection and writing accompanying notes), South African poetry, in Another English: Anglophone poems from around the world, eds. Catherine Barnett and Tiphanie Yanique (Tupelo Press/Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute, 2014)

Contributing-editor, copy-editor, proof-reader, Chimurenga Chronic (quarterly), 2012-2013

Text editor, various freelance projects, from creative writing (poetry – in English and Afrikaans - and prose fiction [English]) to academic text.

Part-time manuscript reviewer/ evaluator, 2005 to present (Kwela)

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Text editor, Script for a Visual Presentation on Spier’s Africa Centre Project, 2007

Text editor/ proof-reader, Spier Sustainability Reports, 2005, 2006

Text editor/proof-reader, phase 1 of Spier Estate’s Southbank competition website

Compiler/ Editor, South African Short Stories Since 1994 (for high schools), 2006, Oxford University Press (selected material and wrote accompanying notes and exercises)

Compiler/ Editor, Voices from All Over, (poetry anthology for high schools), 2007, Oxford University Press Southern Africa (selected material and wrote accompanying notes and exercises)

Creative Curator, pitch development for Spier signage (from brief to pitch), Lunch Advertising Agency, 2005

Further experience:

Interpreter (English <> Afrikaans): For Dr Avron Moss (neuropsychologist); (“live” interpretation of interviews and tests)

Data capturing: HIV Mental Health Unit, Groote Schuur Hospital, July 2009

Adjudicator, Student poetry competition, University of Stellenbosch, 2006

Adjudicator, English Academy of ’s Thomas Pringle Award (television reviews), 1997

Editorial Assistant, Pretexts (academic journal), 1997-2003, included proofreading and occasional sub-editing of submissions.

Guest editor, Die Suid Afrikaan, December 1995/ January 1996 issue

Assistant-editor, Mid-American Review, Bowling Green State University, USA, August 1994 — May 1995 (part of graduate studies programme)

Research assistant, for Dr Brenda Cooper, Director, Centre for African Studies, UCT, 1993 — 1994, 1995 — January 1997

Research assistant, for David Theo Goldberg, editor, Social Identities, School of Justice Studies, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA. 1995

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Essays, Reviews, Presentations, Journalism

“The sound of whatever rhyming” (presentation), Craft Wars Symposium, University of Cape Town, 20 September 1-14 “Foreword”, in Regarding Muslims: From Slavery to Post-, Gabeba Baderoon (Wits UP, 2014) Review (documentary film): Shelly Barry’s Diaries of a Dissident Poet (on James Matthews), at Africa is a Country, July 2014 (http://africasacountry.com/james-matthews-being-james-matthews/) Review (poetry): Khulile Nxumalo’s Fhedzi, in Chronic Books (Chimurenga, Cape Town, November 2013) “Get your gharum on, Graham” (food column), in Chronic (Chimurenga, Cape Town, November 2013) “A brief history of shit” (journalism), Chronic, (Chimurenga, Cape Town, November 2013) “Curry Chronicles” (food column), Chronic, (Chimurenga, Cape Town, August 2013) “Where Terror Lies” (opinion piece on PAGAD), Chronic, (Chimurenga, Cape Town, April 2013) Review (poetry): Vivek Narayanan’s Life and Times of Mr S, in Chronic Books, (Chimurenga, Cape Town, April 2013) “Spring – light and dark” (non-fiction), in Visi Magazine, December 2012 Review (fiction): JM Coetzee’s The Childhood of Jesus, in Cape Times, March 2013 Review (non-fiction): Paul Auster’s Winter Journal, in Rapport, Dec. 2012 “The muezzin and I” (non-fiction), in Social Dynamics, 2012 “Fufu Pot” (food, creative non-fiction), in Chronic Life, (Chimurenga, Cape Town, Oct. 2011) Review (fiction): José Eduardo Agualusa’s My Father’s Wives, in Chronic Books, (Chimurenga, Cape Town, Oct. 2011) Occasional book reviews and opinion pieces in Rapport, Die Burger, Boeke- Insig, News24, Cape Times (ca 2007-2010) “More questions than answers” (music review of Die Antwoord), Art South Africa, 2010 “Royaumont Hash-up” (non-fiction), in Home Away, edited by Louis Greenberg (Zebra Press, 2010) “Onverbonde” (non-fiction), (translated into Afrikaans by Charl-Pierre Naude), in As almal ver is: Suid- skryf huis toe, edited by Danie Marais (Tafelberg, 2009) “You can’t get lost in the samoosa triangle” (food column), Chimurenga #14, 2009 (republication) “Dagga” (non-fiction), African Cities Reader I, (2009) Review (poetry): Petra Müller’s Night Crossing, in Rapport, 25 March 2007 “Moedertang”, autobiographical essay on Afrikaans and English, LitNet, 2005, (http://www.oulitnet.co.za/seminarroom/kozain_moedertang.asp) 7

Review (non-fiction/ cultural studies): Desperately Seeking Paradise: Journeys of a Sceptical Muslim by Ziauddin Sardar, Mail & Guardian, 25 Nov. 2005 Review (cultural studies): “Poetics of the seam… and jazz”, Mail & Guardian, 5- 11 Nov. 2004 Review: Documentary, Rehad Desai’s Born into Struggle, in 3 Continents Film Festival supplement to Mail and Guardian, 3-9 Sept. 2004 Review (poetry): Kelwyn Sole’s Mirror and Water Gazing, Chris Mann’s Heartlands and Tatamkhulu Afrika’s Nightrider: Selected Poems, in English Academy Review, 2004 Review (academic; cultural/literary studies): Mark Sanders’s Complicities: The Intellectual and Apartheid, H-Net Reviews, 2005 Review (academic; history/rhetoric): The Rhetoric of Sobriety: Wine in Early Islam, in Journal of Islamic Studies, 2003 Review (cultural studies): “The Old in the New”, review of Sarah Nuttall and Cheryl-Ann Michael’s Senses of Culture, in Pretexts 11 (2), November 2002, pp.197-203 Introduction for book launch of Fiona Zerbst’s Time and Again, Cape Town, 27 September 2002 “Fuck Colouredness and the Coloured Voice” (opinion column), in Chimurenga, vol.1, 2002 Review (poetry): Tatamkhulu Afrika’s Mad Old Man Under the Morning Star, in New Coin Poetry, 37 (2), 2001 Staff Seminar, “Reading the Right Thing: Spike Lee’s Critique of Identity Politics”, Centre for African Studies, UCT, 8 August 2001 “The joys of smoking” (opinion column), WorldOnline, 16 August 2001 Review (poetry): Jeremy Cronin, Even the Dead, in New Contrast, 26 (1), 1998 Review (fiction): Ian Gordon, ed., Looking for a Rain God and other stories from Africa, in Wasafiri, #27, Spring 1998 Review (academic): Tanure Ojaide, Poetic Imagination in Black Africa: Essays on African Poetry, in Wasafiri, #26, Autumn 1997 “Slap chips for the soul” (food column), in Student Life, April 1997 “Bean me up” (food column), in Student Life, March 1997 “Brief uit Kaapstad” (Editorial), in Die Suid-Afrikaan, Dec.1995/Jan.1996 Review (poetry): Tatamkhulu Afrika’s The Lemon Tree, in New Contrast, #94, June 1996 Review (art installation): “Miscast: Negotiating History...” installation, in Southern African Review of Books, #44, July/August 1996 Review (poetry): Sheila Roberts’s Daughters and Other Dutiful Women; Fiona Zerbst’s the small zone and Heinemann Book of African Women’s Poetry, in Southern African Review of Books, #46, Nov/December 1996 Participant in round table discussion hosted by Denise Coussy and Denis Hirson, published in translation as “Novelles tendances de l’écriture en Afrique du Sud”, in Notre Librairie, #122, Apr/Jun 1995 “Shakespeare’s Silences in Search of the People: South African Literary Criticism and the Poetry of Mzwakhe Mbuli”, in Wasafiri, (University of Kent, England, Summer 1994) 8

“LKJ: Reality poems” (article on the poetry of Linton Kwesi Johnson), in Language Projects Review, vol.8, #1 (National Language Project, Cape Town, 1993,)

Poetry

(2001-present)

Selection of five poems at Prague Review, (September 2014), http://praguerevue.com/ViewArticle?articleId=6423 Selection of seven poems, in In the Heat of Shadows: South African Poetry 1996-2013, ed. Denis Hirson, (Deep South, Grahamstown, 2014) “Featured Voice”, selection of five poems at Canopic Jar, (ca December 2013), http://canopicjar.com/featured-voices/rustum-kozain/ Selection of five poems in German translation, in Ankunft eines weiteren Tages (Wunderhorn, 2013) “Ohio”, at The Ofi Press Magazine, #17, May 2012 (http://theofipress.webs.com/kozainrustum.htm) “This is the sea”, “Fog”, in The Common, #4, 2012 Groundwork, volume, Kwela Books/Snailpress, 2012 Three poems, translated into Indonesian, in What’s Poetry – Antologi Puisi, Henk Publica, 2012 “La mujer que soy”, “The woman I am” - poem translated into Spanish, published in Letras Libres (Mexico), 2010, translated by Jorge Esquinca “Il regno della pioggia”, “Kingdom of Rain” translated into Italian, in Lo Straniero, Dec. 2009/ Jan. 2010, translated by Damiano Abeni and Moira Egan “Depression”, “Bowling Green, Ohio”, in New Contrast #146 (forthcoming, June 2009) “Weer thuis” (“Home again”, translated into Dutch by Robert Dorsman), in Passionate Magazine, 14 (2), 2007 “Groundwork X”/ “Grondwerk X” (Dutch translation by Robert Dorsman), in De Revisor, nr.2-3, 2007 “Boeken sturen”, “De onberispelijke onnauwkeurigheid van antobiotica”, “Herinnering aan revoluties” (“Sending books”, “The immaculate imprecision of antibiotics”, “Memories of revolutions” translated into Dutch by Robert Dorsman), in Bunker Hill, 37/38, 2007 “Kingdom of Rain”, in Birds in Words: A Twitcher’s Guide to South African Poetry, ed. Gus Ferguson, Umuzi, 2006 “Kingdom of Rain”, “Home Again”, in Lovely Beyond Any Singing: Landscapes in South African Writing, ed. Helen Moffett, Double Storey, 2006 Excerpt from “Groundwork”, “The Blessing”, “Adult Alphabet”, “Uffe”, Litnet, 2006 (http://www.oulitnet.co.za/relax/rustum_kozain_in.asp) This Carting Life, volume of poetry, Kwela/Snailpress, 2005 “Crossing from Solitude”, in Nobody ever said AIDS: Stories and poems from Southern Africa, eds. N. Rasebotsa, M. Samuelson, K. Thomas, Kwela, 2004 9

“Winter 2003”, “Photograph: Denise Levertov”, “Storytelling”, in New Contrast, 31(4), 2003 “Kingdom of Rain”, “Easter”, Excerpt from “Groundwork”, “The Woman I am”, “Crossing from Solitude”, in New Contrast, 30 (4), 2002 “Talking Jazz”, in Rootz, #1, (September 2002) “Rain in May”, in New Contrast, 30 (1), 2002 “Cape Town, Jerusalem”, anthologised in It all begins, ed. Robert Berold, University of Natal Press, 2002 “Maitland, Cape Town”, in City in Words, ed. Ingrid de Kok and Gus Ferguson, David Philip, 2001

Fiction

“Port Nolloth/ 00.01”, in FFWD>> SA2034, supplement to Sunday Times, 27 April 2014 “Dickie Isaacs, Station Master”, in Train of Thought (forthcoming, The Nameless Foundation) “The pornographer’s muse”, in Playboy SA, December 2011 “Krot” (extract), eds., Isabel Balseiro and Tobias Hecht, South Africa: A Traveler’s Literary Companion, (Whereabouts Press, 2009) “The Tongue”, In Modern South African Stories, ed. Stephen Gray, Jonathan Ball, 2002 “The Keys”, In Keys (High School anthology), ed. Brenda Cooper, Maskew Miller Longman, 2000 “The Tongue”, New Contrast, 26 (1), 1998 “The Children of 1980”; short story in South, (May 17-22, 1990)

Poetry Readings

McGregor Poetry Festival, June 2013 Biennale Internationale des Poètes en Val de Marne, Paris, May–June 2013 What is Poetry, International Writers’ Forum, Johannesburg, April–May 2013 Mail & Guardian Literary Festival, August 2012 What’s Poetry, International Writers’ Forum, Indonesia, April 2012 The Cape and the Cosmopolitan (literary conference), Stellenbosch, April 2010 Off-the-Wall, Cape Town, January 2009, June 2009, January 2010 Fiesta Tapas Bar, Cape Town, 2 October 2008 Badalisha Heritage Day Poetry Exchange, Cape Town, 24 September 2008 Bristol Poetry Festival, September 2008 Franschhoek Literary Festival, 2007, 2008 Winternachten, Den Haag, January 2007 Poetry Africa, , October 2006 Cape Town Book Fair, 2006 Off-the-Wall, 2004, 2005, 2006 10

Honours and Awards

2014: Olive Schreiner Award for Groundwork (volume of poetry, published 2012)

2013: Herman Charles Bosman Award (NB Publishers) for Groundwork;

Residency with Trajectories of Modernity, University of Barcelona, (May- June, 2013)

2009: Residency at Civitella Ranieri Center, Umbria, Italy, August to September

2007: Olive Schreiner Award, for This Carting Life

2006: Ingrid Jonker Poetry Prize, for This Carting Life

2004: Thomas Pringle Award for a poem published in a journal

1997: Mellon/UCT Supervisor’s Scholarship and Babette Taute Trust Scholarship for English Studies; Mondi Award runner-up, Food category, for journalism in Student Life; Phillip Stein Poetry Award for poem published in New Contrast

1994: Fulbright Scholarship for postgraduate study in America, 1994-1995; Oppenheimer Fellowship for research at School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (Both awarded at the same time; accepted Fulbright)

1993: Andrew Mellon Foundation Scholarship (administered by University of Cape Town); Finalist in Bertrams VO Award for

1992: Andrew Mellon Foundation Scholarship; University of Cape Town Postgraduate Research Scholarship; Finalist in Sanlam Young Voices Short Story Competition

1991: Andrew Mellon Foundation Scholarship; Human Sciences Research Council Research Grant; D.A.A.D. (Germany) Scholarship (administered by University of Cape Town)

1990: Ad hoc grant from Cape Tercentenary Foundation

1989: Joint winner of Nelson Mandela Poetry Prize (University of Cape Town)

(ten pages including cover page)