No Spark, Lessing or Ballard -the Booker Prize shortlist leaves the race wide open for a dark horse. Here is our quick guide to the shortlist The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (Bloomsbury) Margaret Atwood finds herself shortlisted for the Booker for the fourth time with her 10th novel. The story has three interwoven narratives: […]

The ICCTrophy tournament in Kenya has brought the excitement back to cricket Peter Robinson Let’s make one thing clear right from the start: the quality of cricket played during the International Cricket Council (ICC) Knockout 2000 tournament in Nairobi has been excellent. And this is a direct result of the knockout format employed for the […]

After a decade director Oliver Schmitz has completed a film that challenges Hollywood’s black stereotypes Andrew Worsdale In 1988 a relatively unknown newcomer directed what was to become what is regarded as the best anti-apartheid feature film ever made – Mapantsula. It was the story of Panic, a small-time crook (played by the late Thomas […]

Brenda Atkinson fine art Jonathan Dollimore said of Georges Bataille that “it is through eroticism that we are seduced by the pull of annihilation; we really do want death to ‘wreak its havoc at our expense’… death is experienced most intensely as desire.” In Memorials without Facts, Clive van den Berg’s exhibition of new works […]

Johnny Masilela The Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg will, from November 8 to 10, be the venue for the European Union/South Africa Film Symposium, a gathering poised to reposition the film industry as a significant player in the economic development of the country. Preparations for the all-important summit were unveiled at the end of a […]

Andrew Muchineripi soccer Football in South Africa has reached a worrying level when Sundowns have to give away tickets for an African Champions League match against Esperance in Pretoria on Saturday. One newspaper offered 200 tickets this week and another 100 to those who phoned and correctly answered a question, and I am reliably informed […]

Who says women are the weaker sex at sport? Sharon Krum Marion Jones wanted to win five gold medals at the Olympics last month, setting a new record in athletics the way Mark Spitz, with seven in 1972, set it in swimming. It did not happen but Jones, the fastest female in the world, clearly […]

SA Reserve Bank governor Tito Mboweni has stressed the importance of a strong independent central bank, saying that central bankers operated on a longer term time scale than politicians and did not face the same temptation to relax policy to achieve short term objectives. “By delegating decisions about interest rates and other monetary matters to […]

Khadija Magardie review OFTHEWEEK It is often the case that the progressiveness of a society may be measured by the position of its women. This is even more so in the one facet of society that transcends geographical boundaries – religion. It was no doubt with this in mind that the local chapter of the […]