Don Maclennan’s new poetry volume, Solstice, has won him two awards. He spoke to Denise Rack Louw `I dislike interviews, but I enjoy conversations,” award-winning poet Don Maclennan tells me with a twinkle. I am visiting Maclennan at his Grahamstown home to find out more about the writer and his work – including Solstice (Snailpress), […]

Robert Kirby: LOOSE CANNON At our peril we are all ignoring another fine example Dr Nkosazana Zuma has given us of audacious democratic management skills. Especially when it comes to applying discipline to insolent apartheid-residual control bodies, Nkosazana leads the way. As they say in the good book: if thine hand offends thee, cut it […]

Jeremy Cronin: CROSSFIRE General Georg Meiring’s blunder in passing on to President Nelson Mandela a cock-and-bull story about a “left-wing” plot has got me thinking about Reserve Bank governor Chris Stals. What is the connection, you wonder? There have been persistent rumours about Stals’s role in the apartheid-era State Security Council. Little light has been […]

Janet Smith PROFESSOR EXPERIMENTO’S FRIGHTENING FORMULA by Janie Oosthuysen (Human & Rousseau, R24,95) Children who are already on their way to reading novels will love this unusual little drama, set in a scientific lab, where rats are infinitely more brave and clever than the humans who would experiment on them. It tells the tale of […]

Anna Borzello in Kampala A coalition force of Ugandan rebels, Sudanese government troops and former fighters of ousted Zairean president Mobutu Sese Seko is operating from bases in Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). Garamba, in the north-east of Congo, borders Sudan to the […]

What do you think? We invite our readers to respond to John Pilger’s analysis of South Africa. The best replies will each receive a free copy of his latest book, Hidden Agendas, published by Vintage. Fax your responses to (011) 403-1025 or e-mail [email protected]

Shaun de Waal: CDs of the week Someone of an older generation once told me he felt quite upset that so few younger people would ever fully appreciate the joys of Mozart. I’m afraid I’m one of them, but I feel the same way as he did when it comes to jazz,particularly its greatest practitioners […]

Bill Buford: GRAFFITI The literary news in New York has been of acquisitions. The most noteworthy, of course, is the acquisition of Random House by Bertelman’s. The Pierpont Morgan library has just been given a gift of rare “American literary properties” collected by Carter Burden, a New York businessman with an interest in the media […]

Michael Billington: London theatre I have measured out my life in productions of Uncle Vanya – two in particular, by Laurence Olivier and Peter Stein, will haunt me to my grave. Katie Mitchell’s RSC/Young Vic co-production may not be on quite the same exalted plane, but it remains a treasurable occasion, penetrating the memory for […]

Dear Phillipe:…It certainly has not taken you long to become a household name in South Africa. One week to be precise. Snubbing the media, intimidating and humiliating players. What a start! I know you were critical of the South Africa media long before you set foot on our soil because I read your interview with […]