Louise Viljoen VIR ‘N PERS HUIS by Karin Cronj (Human &Rousseau) Karin Cronj’s novel Vir ‘n Pers Huis starts with a scene in a supermarket. The narrator is overcome with disgust as she observes a woman who gorges herself on the Danish pastries she is loading into her shopping trolley, and cringes pathetically while selecting […]

Chiara Carter A campaign to fight xenophobia and raise awareness about refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants is to be launched next month. The campaign is part of a three-year strategy drawn up by a consultant commissioned by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR). It is being spearheaded by the National Consultative Forum on Refugee […]

Robin McKie It is the Holy Grail of physics, and it has eluded scientists for the past 30 years. Now researchers believe they are on the threshold of detecting the most elusive force in the cosmos: gravity waves. But if they find the waves do not exist, that would still be significant: it would prove […]

Loose cannon: Robert Kirby This looming Christmas is, of course, the second last of both the present century and millennium. There also remains little over a year until the founder of the Christian religion hits that big ol’ double whammy and becomes the religion’s first 2 000-year-old Saviour. As He starts His penultimate Y2K lap, […]

SA Wally Mbhele An anti-apartheid hero who in 1979 pulled off a daring escape from the Pretoria Central Prison is fighting a new struggle – against bureaucrats in the democratic government. Alex Mombaris, a Greek national, visited South Africa last week to attempt to persuade the Department of Home Affairs to grant him permanent residence. […]

readership Johnny Masilela DIPHORORO TSA BOPHELO edited by MV Shai (Heinemann Mamela Afrika Series) In his foreword, the editor and compiler of this Sepedi language collection of short stories, MV Shai, goes to great pains to explain what protest literature is all about. Were contributing authors asked to come up with political stories? The first […]

Five pairs of tickets can be won in the Mail & Guardian’s Bee Gees competition. All you have to do is answer this question: What are the Bee Gees first names? To respond call (011) 726-8098 between 6pm and 7pm on Friday November 27 for your tickets that will be valid for November 28.

Angella Johnson VIEW FROM A BROAD There was something Monty Pythonesque about lunching with three clean-cut white men in their late 20s, watching them pour cups of strong coffee down their throats as if it were a drug, while regaling me with “war stories” of their narcotics abuse. I had wanted to spend time inside […]

Charl Blignaut Oom Paul Kruger’s statue has stood for 44 years on Church Square in Pretoria, watching nothing changing at all. Unlike Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s bust on Red Square, he may survive the shake-up planned for the capital’s inner city. If all goes according to plan, Oom Paul will find himself in the centre of […]

Fine art: Brenda Atkinson The relationship between the private sector and the arts in South Africa has not traditionally been characterised by a spirit of mutual largesse: corporates regarded artists as garret-based idealists, while artists saw suits as conniving Thatcherites with philistine aesthetic inclinations. The terrain, however, has shifted notably in the past few years, […]