Digby Ricci THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION by Gore Vidal (Knopf) One hates to bow to conventional wisdom, but Gore Vidal really is a far better essayist than he is a novelist. In his essays, the erudition is elegantly startling, but never obtrusive, and the much-vaunted “mordant wit” is a rapier, not a bludgeon. Thus, Susan Sontag’s […]

Robert Kirby: Loose cannon I have it on the best authority that Monica Lewinsky is actually what is known in the espionage business as a “high-grade deep mole”. In truth Monica works for Saddam Hussein who personally coached her in the finer points of presidential seduction. The entire oval office sexual farrago is a brilliantly […]

wife on Women’s Day’ Tangeni Amupadhi A well-known Johannesburg psychiatrist is to appear in court next week on charges of battering his wife on National Women’s Day. According to Yeoville police, where the woman laid charges of common assault, the psychiatrist – who cannot be named for professional reasons – attacked his wife twice on […]

William Boot A secret commission of inquiry into the collapse of Namibia’s copper mining industry wrapped up its proceedings in Windhoek this week and is expected to move on to Johannesburg. It was established to investigate the role of Goldfields SA, owner of the Tsumeb Corporation Limited (TCL), in the closure of all four of […]

Neil Manthorp in Birmingham Cricket At last, some justice. The final moment of any significance, the last memory of the tour of England, was positive. Not just the victory, but the catch by Jonty Rhodes in the covers. So often we see great feats of athleticism diminished by the television replay. Occasionally they remain untarnished, […]

Mail & Guardian correspondents A last-ditch attempt by a coalition of states to rescue the ailing regime of Congolese President Laurent Kabila may have come too late as anti-government rebels continued their inexorable march to the capital Kinshasa this week. Despite reports of a ceasefire offer from the rebels and desperate attempts by South Africa […]

Stewart Dalby Spending it Travel literature is a field in which the collector would seem spoilt for choice. The variety is vast: exploration, seafaring, biology, outer space, anthropology, derring-do, geography, geology and meteorology. Some people collect modern tourist guides while others collect rare 16th- century books about how the world was first circumnavigated. What would […]

Simone de Beauvoir described her companion and fellow philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, as her `greatest achievement’. But it was the American writer Nelson Algren who was the great love of her life. They began a passionate affair just as she was embarking on her landmark feminist text, The Second Sex. In her letters, she tells of […]

Piet Gouws and PH `Tienie’ Groenewald A SECOND LOOK A serious problem has developed in the platteland. Brutal attacks against the farming community have reached such alarming proportions that, even though farmers are creating security structures to ensure their own safety and that of their labourers, the number of farmers in certain districts on the […]