Searching for Sugar Man ... the book

First it was the 2012 Academy Award-winning documentary film and now it is a book!

On Monday night we went to the book launch of Sugar Man. The Life, Death and Resurrection of Sixto Rodriguez by Craig Bartholomew Strydom and Stephen "Sugar" Segerman, the two fans whose search for Sugar Man after apartheid led to Rodriguez's performing live on stage in South Africa for the very first time in 1998.

The book launch was held at one of Vince's and my favorite tapas restaurants in Cape Town, La Parada (Order the croquetas de jamon!) There, the authors were interviewed by Marianne Thamm, herself an author as well as a columnist, satirist, and the assistant editor of Daily Maverick. After a conversational interview with Marianne, Craig and Sugar entertained questions from the audience and then signed copies of their book.

The authors (seated) with Thamm in the middle at La Parada

We absolutely loved the movie and we are big fans ourselves of Rodriguez's music as a result of watching it. But while director Malik Benjelloul's Searching for Sugar Man chronicled the book authors' odyssey to find out what had happened to their musical hero from the 1970s and 80s, their book presents a much bigger picture of the Rodriguez saga.

The book is broken up into four parts - The Mystery, The Man, The Music and The Movie and it outlines three separate journeys and the obstacles and triumphs that each presented: Rodriguez's struggle to make a life from his music, the search by two fans to find him, and Benjelloul's pursuit to bring the story to life on the screen.

And apparently there is talk of bringing the movie-turned-book to the stage in the form of a Broadway musical! Produced by Hal Prince no less! What?

Rodriguez is scheduled to perform live on stage again in South Africa next year but unfortunately we won't be here to see him. So the book is going to have to suffice. Until the Broadway musical, that is.