Andy Capostagno: Cricket One hundred and forty seven is an important number. It was the number of the bus I used to catch to school and it was the number achieved for the first time in the world snooker championships by the reformed Canadian pool hustler, Cliff Thorburn. When Thorburn sank 15 reds, 15 blacks […]

Babak Dehghanpisheh An Egyptianwriter who converted from Islam to Christianity and is resident in South Africa has come under fire from Muslims and is now under police protection. Known only as Mustafa, the name under which he writes, he is a scholar who fled persecution in Egypt -where conversion is illegal – making an incredible […]

Andrew Muchineripi: Soccer Arch-rivals Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates meet for the third time this season at FNB Stadium on Saturday, and after two drawn championship clashes there must be a result in the Bob Save Super Bowl second-round clash. The luck of the draw brought together at an early stage two teams the public […]

Charl Blignaut: On stage in Johannesburg Confounding though it may seem, it is quite likely that one of the main reasons South African contemporary dance finds itself poised on the brink of serious international acclaim has to do with the battle for resources and a workable artistic space that local dance has had to emerge […]

Connor Cullinan Radical adult comic book Bitterkomix has been excluded from this year’s Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees (KKK) in Oudtshoorn, despite a successful show at last year’s event. The organisers have given conflicting reasons for the exclusion; Bitterkomix’s editors say they suspect censorship by stealth. The comic, an Afrikaans collection of graphic narrative, was founded […]

Gavin Evans Boxing The idea of girding his ancient loins to beat up over-hyped young Englishmen is one that has long given pleasure to Benoni’s toughest, wiliest and prettiest granddad. The 42-year-old Thulane “Sugarboy” Malinga (he finds no offence in the boy bit) is seen as a bit of a fluke on this island, despite […]

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.’ […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]