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/ 6 November 2007
Every province deserves one, but thus far only Mpumalanga is so blessed. Deeply researched, written and edited with admirable clarity, and attractively presented, Mpumalanga: History and Heritage (University of KwaZulu-Natal Press) is the <i>Mail & Guardian</i>’s choice for non-fiction book of the year, writes Darryl Accone.
People’s assumptions about post-school studies may lead to recommendations that are not necessarily in a school-leaver’s best interests. For too long, a matric exemption has been hailed as the be-all and end-all, giving rise to expectations that, while well-intended, could end up pushing people into university who should never be there. Matric is a milestone, but any milestone is only one point on a journey.
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/ 21 September 2007
Darryl Accone reviews Michael Dibdin’s End Games, the last instalment of the Zen novels.
Crime fiction is given short shrift by the literati. Yet the genre sharply examines societies in transition and pressing human issues. Darryl Accone investigates.
Non-Chinese readers have never been as well supplied with works on China as they are now. Darryl Accone reviews three new books.
In his National Arts Festival Winter School lecture this year, 30 Years On: The Legacy of Steve Biko, Barney Pityana — a friend and intellectual confrère of Biko — dexterously balanced the personal and the political, and eloquently demonstrated why the former so often constitutes the latter.
The Cape Town Book Fair has achieved much in its second year, writes Darryl Accone.
Darryl Accone examines the culture and commercial imperatives of book awards
South African-born author Christopher Hope, now resident in France, may find himself embroiled in a literary scandal over allegations that his novel My Mother’s Lovers contains characters and situations that are startlingly similar to those in Liz McGregor’s biography Khabzela: The Life and Times of a South African.
It was from Canton, now known as Guangzhou, that the first wave of Chinese immigrants sailed to South Africa in the 1870s. There had been Chinese in the country well before: the Dutch brought Chinese labour from their colony of Batavia as early as 1658, for example.