Adam Mars-Jones GUT SYMMETRIES by Jeanette Winterson (Granta) This novel (now in paperback) from a commendably retiring writer – it is known that she doesn’t read reviews of her work – repeats a number of themes from previous books:the deathliness of habit and the everyday, sexual triangles, a city viewed as phantasmagorical, the serviceability of […]

possessions Peter Dickson How the mighty have fallen. Once he was a president who ruled with an iron finger. Today PW Botha is a pitiful old man, forced to pawn his prized trinkets in order to pay for his stubbornness. A week before his sentencing in the George Magistrates Court for refusing to testify before […]

Carolize Jansen The Sports Information and Science Agency conducted an extensive and enlightening study on the participation of women in sport last year. The main objectives of the study were to obtain the number of women participating in various sports in South Africa, segment the number of these participants in categories according to, for instance, […]

You may be surprised to learn that Africa’s stock exchanges have outperformed most other emerging markets in the year to date in dollar terms – and that’s despite war in the Congo, bombs in Kenya and Tanzania and the general perception of the continent as a haven for corruption and chaos. You may be further […]

Robert Kirby: Loose cannon I find myself quite amazed at the runaway spending of people who suddenly acquire a great deal of money. It’s quite baffling that someone who wins six or seven million tax-free quid on a lottery, can squander the entire bundle inside a couple of years. Sure, a fancy new car and […]

Wally Mbhele The credibility of the police and the prosecution – led by the Transvaal Attorney General, Jan d’Oliviera – has come under heavy assault from lawyers defending three African National Congress members who were convicted for the 1993 Eikenhof massacre. Fresh evidence pointing to prior police knowledge of the identity of the real perpetrators […]

It is perhaps not politically correct to draw sustenance from the “poet of Imperialism”. But as one surveys the international and domestic scene at the moment, the famous words from Rudyard Kipling’s poem, If, spring inevitably to mind: “If you can keep your head while all about you are losing theirs …” We are living […]

Michael Finch Athletics South Africa’s dreams of hosting the World Cup soccer competition in 2002 could well be decided in Johannesburg from September 11-13 when the athletics version of the World Cup takes place at the Johannesburg stadium. The event will be more than just the third biggest track and field festival in the world […]

Black empowerment threatens to turn South Africa into another East Asia, writes Ben Turok President Nelson Mandela’s recent statement at the National Council of Provinces that he will root out of the government “those who betray the calling of the public service” and who enrich themselves, and his attack on the culture of entitlement, gives […]

Matthew Krouse Johannesburg’s Newtown cultural precinct’s rather tarnished image as the social hub of the great African city has been amply lambasted. Suburbanites now bypass the city centre, believing it has fallen apart – especially Newtown, with its derelict buildings crowded with squatters, revelling township drunkards and stoned teenage ravers. So a visionary new scheme, […]