PRONK is a new press based in Cape Town, South Africa, and Ukiah, California.
The verb pronk is defined by the Oxford Dictionary of English as follows:
(of a springbok or other antelope) leap in the air with an arched back and stiff legs, typically as a form of display or when threatened: grysbok were pronking over tall tufts of grass.
ORIGIN | 1920s: from Afrikaans, literally ‘show off’, from Dutch pronken ‘to strut’.
Our first-ever print project is Xander Beattie’s propulsive political thriller, The President.
the PRONK manifesto
We don’t take ourselves too seriously (though we’re rather earnest about reading, writing and publishing, it’s true).
We believe in the possibilities literature holds for protest, provocation, enquiry and escape.
Our publishing projects explore and celebrate hybridity, complexity and contradictions with daring, verve and nuance.
We think a fairer future is worth fighting for. So is one in which you can safely be your authentic self.
We abhor bullies and intolerance. We’re wary of the powerful. They deserve scrutiny, critique and accountability. Might doesn’t equal right. Growth is not inherently good. Sufficiency is an underrated virtue; it’s damn well time to make it sexy again.
Nerds are hot. Trees are wise. Laughter is medicine. Compassion is classy.
We love transit. Municipal libraries. Public pools. Bike lanes. Long walks. Skinny-dipping and stargazing. Pistachios. This precious, over-heating, staggeringly beautiful, brutalised earth.
We are restless. Persistent. Curious. Intrigued by the peripheral and the marginalised, the spaces between, and nodes of collision, infusion and (dis)connection. We yearn to understand the big picture, but find delight in the little details. We’re dreamers who seek solace in the everyday, adventurers who value a welcoming home. Sometimes the asking matters more than the answers, the journeying more than the place you’re trying to get to.
AI is SO overhyped. It is no substitute for critical thinking or the messy exhilaration of creativity and meaning-making.
There is much to be said for the analogue, life offscreen, the printed page. In this relentlessly, restlessly deafening age, silence and stillness are golden. So is a blank sheet and a mechanical pencil.
Quality should trump quantity; rigour beats speed. We find value in slowing down, in pauses, reflection and play.
We craft books in Cape Town, South Africa, and Ukiah, California. They’re made with care, vigour and a pinch of sass. By book-lovers. For book-lovers.
We are
PRONK.
