I had of late started to lose enthusiasm for buying and reading the Mail & Guardian, what with that obnoxious man Sipho Seepe blathering all over my weekly read. I am told he also goes under the pretext of being a professor but I think he can safely be referred to as a palooka. But I digress.
My waning interest in the M&G had led me to adopt a pattern of skimming through it without much interest, except to hope that you might have some interesting guest hack like John Pilger or such like.
Imagine my delight then to come across the feature on “Ben Trovato: A man of letters” (November 23). I confess to not having had a good hearty laugh while reading your paper for a while until Saturday morning. Takalani Singo, Noordwyk
Your feature on The Ben Trovato Files makes no reference to the works by British writer William Donaldson (aka Henry Root). There’s no copyright on clever ideas, but failure to acknowledge the origin of a literary device is a lapse of good manners. Nice book, though. Alan Duggan, Cape Town
The publisher replies: The first sentence of the first page of the book acknowledges the debt to Mr Root: “I write to you in the spirit of that great man of English letters, Henry Root Esq.”