Food: Ferial Haffajee There’s nothing like a steaming packet of slap (pronounced slup) chips to sate a raging appetite. Like cricket, slap chips are a great example of how the colonised took the ball – or in this case the spud – and ran with it. The potato chip, South African style, is barely comparable […]

A new survey shows that South African women are more likely to be killed by their partners than by strangers. Tangeni Amupadhi reports To reach her Lenasia home, Yasmin Fakir walks across a field where there have been several rapes and murders. But it is only when she opens her front door that she feels […]

Gail Smith Akosua Busia does not understand the meaning of the word “no”. The multi- talented actress and writer freely admits: “I come from privelege, and my sense of entitlement is the greatest thing in my life.” This unshakable sense of rightness has enabled Busia to capitalise on every opportunity and setback in the pursuit […]

He drinks herbal tea, but it is Zim Ngqawana’s music that is the most healing, writes Phillip Kakaza Some call him the most important young composer in South Africa today. He’s credited with bringing together the oldest South African musical traditions and the international avant garde to create a sound that is both local and […]

Angella Johnson: VIEW FROM A BROAD `Please let him touch your breast. They’re beautiful and he loves breasts,” pleaded the light-skinned black woman sitting on a sofa beside me and my partner. Her boyfriend, a bespectacled German engineer, was draped over the side idly plucking at my suspenders. In a room down the hallway of […]

These days, the Million Dollar Challenge is more about cracking the nod than it is about the prize money, reports Andy Capostagno The most delicious irony of the Nedbank Million Dollar Challenge is that you have to be a millionaire in the first place just to crack an invite. A decade ago when Welshman Ian […]

Donna Block Zimbabwe’s stock exchange is the latest casualty of President Robert Mugabe’s stubborn pursuit of economic policies that have savaged the local currency and plunged Zimbabwe into the worst financial crisis of its 18-year history. Since the beginning of the year Zimbabwe’s share market (ZSE), once one of Africa’s brightest rising stars, lost 18,7% […]

Robert Mattes: A SECOND LOOK The details of the first Opinion ’99 survey (a consortium of Idasa, Markinor and the South African Broadcasting Corporation) have been widely reported. But once one backs away from the fine brush strokes of the numbers, what emerges is a distinct picture of the South African electorate six to seven […]

Alex Dodd SOUTH AFRICA THE STRUCTURE OF THINGS THEN by David Goldblatt (Oxford University Press) THE INVISIBLE LINE: THE LIFE AND PHOTOGRAPHY OF KEN OOSTERBROEK by Mike Nicol (Kwela/Random House) This year has been a big one for photographer David Goldblatt. Not only did he become the first South African photographer to be honoured with […]