Lorraine Pace While out walking his dog one summer’s day John Payne met an angel. “It was an ethereal bright golden image, a bit like a shadow embossed on air,” says Payne of his encounter. “The angel was very tall, about 3m, and while no words were spoken I heard a message: ‘You are loved.’ […]

David Beresford A LONG NIGHT’S DAMAGE: WORKING FOR THE APARTHEID STATE by Eugene de Kock as told to Jeremy Gordin (Contra Press, R89,95) The temptation is to recommend this book as required reading in South Africa’s schools, offering as it does an awful warning to future generations as to the consequences when society allows the […]

Dan Wylie, academic, poet and the Mail &Guardian’s chief poetry critic, has been awarded the 1998 Ingrid Jonker Prize for his debut collection of poems, The Road Out. The prize is awarded by fellow-poets and carries a purse of R1 000, to be handed over at the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees in Oudtshoorn on April […]

Martin Scorsese’s film Kundun is one of several new Hollywood movies on Tibet, writes Ed Douglas Long ago, in a land far, far away, a gentle people who believed in the spiritual force that joins us with everything else in the universe was overrun by an evil empire that believed in nothing beyond the material […]

Stephen GrayUnspoilt places Borakalalo means (in Setswana) the “relaxing-place”, and it encompasses what previously was known by red-faced fisherfolk as the Klipvoor resort. Boetie with his latest bait still wades out through the reeds to reel in a gasping silver, yellow-streaked common carp, with scales like rand coins – at his own risk these days, […]

Suzy Bell: In your ear Community radio sings through the green hills of KwaZulu-Natal in a variety of voices from romantic, Bollywood bhangra duets to Shiyane Ngcobo’s masterly Maskanda music. Thanks to the Independent Broadcasting Authority, there are now five new community radio stations in the province, with each station snatching their niche in the […]

FRIDAY, 5.30PM: SOUTH Africa opened its campaign in the Hong Kong Sevens Championships with a 52-7 victory over Thailand on Friday. The Boks struggled at first with the pace and intensity of the Sevens festival, then pulled themselves together to score eight tries to one and set themselves on course for the play-off rounds on […]

Who is James Bond, the gunman in a tux? And why do we love him so? As the latest Bond movie opens in South Africa, Peter Conrad considers a 20th-century icon The image is contradictory. A man in a tuxedo tilts a gun; his arrogant smirk indicates that he is ready to use it. But […]

Government has moved to clip the Independent Broadcasting Authority’s (IBA) wings. Its views are contained in a discussion paper released last week, which many believe is a sneak preview of a White Paper for the sector. The document, written by a task team appointed by Minister of Posts, Telecommunications and Broadcasting Jay Naidoo, also recommends […]