Arundhati Roy took the literary world by storm last year with her first novel, The God of Small Things, which won the Booker prize. In her first piece of writing since then, she expresses her horror at the nuclear arms race in her native India “The desert shook,” the government of India informed us (its […]

Nicholas Dawes Parties in Cape Town `Fuck dance, let’s art” is something like a family motto for the hip UK record label Ninja Tune, and it was unsurprising to find it on a flyer for Friday’s SEXsmorgasbord party at the similarly hip Take Four Bistro. This may seem an unlikely manifesto from the people responsible […]

John Grobler The first body bags arrived in Namibia from Kinshasa this week as a credibility gap as wide as the Congo started opening up around President Sam Nujoma. After days of obdurate denials, the Ministry of Defence confirmed this week that Namibian Defence Force (NDF) soldier Lazarus Hiskia had been killed in fighting on […]

Adam Haupt spoke to Moses Molelekwa about the exotic ingredients on his new album, Spirits and Genes Moses Taiwa Molelekwa recently captivated Cape Town audiences at West End with the launch of his second album, Genes and Spirits. The show was broadcast live to P4 Radio’s ever- smooth constituency and the West End crowd itself […]

Moulded into the plastic soles of my father’s bedroom slippers were the words: “Man-made Materials.” As a child, I pondered that phrase for years. What, exactly, is a man-made material? Where did “man” get the stuff he “made” it from? And if he got it from somewhere and merely melted it down with something else, […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 5.00pm. DEMOCRATIC Republic of Congo rebel leader Ernest Wamba dia Wamba on Friday said he is considering his movement’s participation in the all-party peace talks called on Thursday by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. Wamba admitted, however, that the rebel movement has not yet received an invitation to the talks. Announcing […]

victory Evidence wa ka Ngobeni The spirit of the rainbow nation came to haunt black student organisations at Pretoria Technikon this week when the Freedom Front won the Student Representative Council (SRC) elections. A number of the FF’s 756 winning votes were cast by black students. The party has only been organising on the campus […]

Angella Johnson VIEW FROM A BROAD `When I cool the base, rock this place,” chanted the female singer over the mega sound system. I watched entranced as gum-chewing young men wearing headphones and outsize clothes studiously fiddled with vinyl records on industrial-size players. The Foundation club in Rosebank was certainly rocking. Soon it would be […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Freetown | Friday 8.30PM. THE rebel leader who instigated Sierra Leone’s civil war in 1991 has been charged with treason in Freetown. Foday Sankoh, head of the Revolutionary United Front, was led into a Freetown courtroom under heavy guard on Friday. He made no plea, and his case has been adjourned to September […]

Charl Blignaut On stage in Johannesburg It seemed like it was never going to happen; the eagerly-awaited moment when Johannesburg’s performance underground would raise itself from latex-clad haunches and step into the mainstream clubland spotlight. The first public suspension in a Johannesburg nightclub; theatre for 2000. Two boys, 40 hooks, a metre off the ground […]