Bryan Rostron recounts a close encounter with the pole-sliding publisher of Valley of the Dolls ‘South Africa – whaddya think when ya think, South Africa?” mused the exquisitely tailored New York publisher who had summoned me to his plush Manhattan office. “You think hot, right?” Suddenly he was struck by a bolt of literary inspiration. […]
Matthew Krouse Mail & Guardian editor Phillip van Niekerk has won the National Television and Video Association (NTVA) Avanti award for best script in the drama category for his contribution to the series Saints, Sinners & Settlers. This was one of the few surprises at the award ceremony, held at Kyalami on June 3, that […]
In Africa today the suffering is caused from within. Wole Soyinka laments the loss of post-apartheid confidence and calls for stronger UN intervention A wave of anomie, even a breakdown of humanity, is sweeping across the continent that must be particularly galling to those who so confidently trumpeted an “African renaissance”. What we see today […]
Pensioners in the Eastern Cape are up in arms over chaos in the Welfare Department Peter Dickson Pensioners have rampaged through the Transkei, assaulting provincial Department of Welfare pay-out officials and taking others hostage, after the department quietly removed 20E000 welfare grant beneficiaries from the provincial register. The violent protests took place in Qumbu, Mqanduli […]
Robert Potts BOSS CUPID by Thom Gunn (Faber &Faber) Thom Gunn’s poetry has always been celebratory. In the Fifties, as an English poet of the Movement generation, his icons were leather-clad bikers, Elvis Presley, soldiers – the rough, tough men of action – and he famously wrote “I praise the overdog, from Alexander/ To those […]
MARIANNE MERTEN, Cape Town | Friday 11.45am. SOUTH African cricketers Pieter Strydom and Henry Williams on Friday cast further doubt over Hansie Cronje’s statement that he never approached any other players to affect the outcome of matches for money. Strydom told the King Commssion of inquiry that Cronje approached him before the first Test against […]
Is teen pin-up Anna Kournikova bad for women’s tennis? Jon Henderson looks at the triumph of style over substance When word reached the photographers in the Wimbledon press restaurant that Billie Jean King’s opponent was in trouble on an outside court, they barely looked up from their games of cards. After all the year was […]
Khadija Magardie A newborn South African baby can expect an average of 40 healthy years. That’s the grim news from researchers, as the HIV/Aids pandemic slashes up to seven years of healthy life expectancy off the average South African life. Next to Sierra Leone, Malawi and Namibia, South Africa ranks as one of the lowest […]
Moving beyond play readings, the Kultcha Klub takes on Gladiators, sex and life after death Robert Colman Anyone who’s looking for an intelligent, stimulating and safe one-night stand should try the Wits Downstairs Theatre in Braamfontein – you’ll find a tireless group of artists, who are launching a festival of 10 original South African plays […]
Fossil-spotting might not be the most interactive form of entertainment around, but on the tour of the Cradle of Humankind our ancient ancestors come to life Katy Chance It’s cold, rather grey and drizzling. At the tail end of one of Johannesburg’s wettest and coldest summers in living memory, it seems fitting to find myself […]