- 2023 Sunday Times Literary Awards Longlist – Best Fiction
Sunday Times (16 July 2023)
- REVIEW: “It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way” (Dutch)
Het Zuid-Afrikahuis Cultuur en Kenniscentrum (4 May 2023)
- VIDEO: Queer Representation in Literature
Panel Discussion with Alistair Mackay, Welcome Mandla Lishiva, and Letlhogonolo Mokgoroane at Time of the Writer Festival (March 2023)
- PODCAST: Book Club with Alistair Mackay
A Reader’s Community (March 2023) Apple Podcasts / Spotify
- Longlisted: Best Novel in the British Science Fiction Association Awards
(January 2023)
- The African Writers and Artists Longlisted for the 2022 British Science Fiction Awards
Brittle Paper (23 January 2023)
- “SA authors (and one from Zim) win prizes, get longlisted.”
News24 (20 January 2023)
- Catch up on these excellent South African reads from the past year
Daily Maverick (7 January 2023)
- Books of the Year: Start 2023 with these 2022 recommendations
Sunday Times (2 January 2023)
- Brittle Paper’s “100 Notable African Books of 2022”
(December 2022)
- Mail & Guardian’s “Top 50 African Books of 2022”
(December 2022)
- PODCAST: Climate crisis & compassion in the digital age – with Alistair Mackay & Akil Kumarasamy
The Empty Chair / PEN South Africa podcast (S6E2; 1 December 2022) Apple Podcasts / Spotify
- REVIEW: “‘It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way’ — a must-read fiction about the very real climate crisis”
Daily Maverick (4 October 2022)
- REVIEW: “A poetic, resonant nightmare about LGBT rights and climate change.”
Mail & Guardian (22 August 2022)
- REVIEW: “Climate Dystopia, Homophobia and Capitalism: An Interview with Alistair Mackay“
Gay Pages (Winter 2022)
- REVIEW: “Dystopian novel like a slap on the head” (Afrikaans)
Vrye Weekblad (29 July 2022)
- REVIEW: “It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way: An Exploration of Apocalyptic Cape Town”
Cape{Town}Etc (27 July 2022)
- VIDEO: “5 Unscripted with Stephanie Be: The inaugural Book Club”
Interview with Stephanie Be on 5fm (20 June 2022)
- “REVIEW: It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way”
Culture Review Magazine (9 June 2022)
- REVIEW: “The apocalypse after the apocalypse”
New Frame (23 May 2022)
- “Five Books to Snuggle Up With This Weekend”
Sunday Times Lifestyle (20 May 2022)
- “INTERVIEW: Alistair Mackay about his debut novel It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way”
Scaffold: For Queer Creators & Culture (13 May 2022)
- “INTERVIEW: Alistair Mackay on his dazzling debut novel”
MambaOnline (11 May 2022)
- “REVIEW: Ready or not, change is upon us – Alistair Mackay’s debut is a brutal and brilliant dystopian novel in its commentary on the possibility of our collective future”
Sunday Times (8 May 2022)
- PODCAST: “Present Dystopia“
Panel Discussion with Edgar Pieterse, Alistair Mackay, Kelly-Eve Koopman and Keely Shinners at Open Book Festival 2022 in Cape Town (21 April 2022)
- “REVIEW: It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way – The future is up to us”
Mother City News (4 April 2022)
- PODCAST: “Book Club: It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way by Alistair Mackay”
Lunch with Pippa Hudson, Cape Talk 567AM (18 March 2022)
- “REVIEW: Queer characters walk the future streets of Cape Town in this dystopian tale“
News 24 (9 March 2022)
- VIDEO: “Alistair Mackay publishes his first novel entitled ‘It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way’”
Interview on SABC Morning Live (20 February 2022):
- “‘A dark, vast emptiness within, as boundless as the universe outside’ – Read an excerpt from Alistair Mackay’s debut novel It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way”
Johannesburg Review of Books (17 February 2022)
- “Eg Suid-Afrikaanse leesavonture“
Rapport (5 February 2022)
- “Books to look out for this year”
Sunday Times (24 January 2022)
- “Currently in your feeds by The Reading List“
Daily Maverick (20 November 2021)
- “Alumnus Alistair Mackay ’18 to publish debut novel with Kwela”
Columbia University School of the Arts (5 April 2021)
- “Winner and shortlist of Corona Fiction Competition announced”
News 24 (16 July 2020)
- “Who are the 36 longlisted entries for the First Pages Prize 2020?“
First Pages Prize (1 May 2020)