From the publisher:

Gnossienne (say: nos-yen) is a small bindery, press and publisher based in Cape Town, offering services in bookcraft and production, including design and typesetting. Gnossienne is a new lit-art quarterly intended for release this March (AUTUMN 2025). As the publisher’s eponymous, flagship publication, Gnossienne positions publishing at the forefront of Gnossienne’s practice.

The inaugural issue includes contributions from 30 South African writers and artists via original prose, poetry, interview, music, art, photo and review. The 108-page, black and white publication is laser printed on creamy book paper, folded and stapled in a first edition of 150. A more formal sensibility has been paired with a low-fi visual energy that has prioritised a lithe kind of quickness and avidity in its design and curatorial approach; favouring irreverence, resourcefulness, synchronicity and the speed of play. Being oriented towards the recent past, its concern is buoyed by thoughts of ressurection, time spent and archive.

Gnossienne, the publisher, is named for Erik Satie’s 4 piano compositions, released in 1893. As experimental works, they were written in free time and largely unbound by formal structure; a quality that has greatly informed the ethos of this literary endeavour. The nature of Gnossienne, in this format, is flexible and elastic, ‘a space where all kinds of gestures are possible’. The spirit of this publication has relied heavily and joyfully on an emergent strategy and due to the nature of various synchronicities and conversations had with each contributor, the somnolent theme of dreams grew up around its production, presenting itself as the guiding current. As Gnossienne’s Creative and Editorial Director, it is my pleasure to introduce Issue One: A Day Dream. Mainly Literature. for your consideration.