She’s young, black, British – and the first publishing sensation of the millennium Stephanie Merritt The hype began in late 1997. Zadie Smith was 21 and just down from Cambridge when her first novel was sold on a mere 80 pages for an advance rumoured to be in the region of 250 000. Some two-and-a-half […]

Shaun de Waal THE BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF JAZZ by Leonard Feather and Ira Gitler (Oxford) VISIONS OF JAZZ: THE FIRST CENTURY by Gary Giddins (Oxford) THE HISTORY OF JAZZ by Ted Gioia (Oxford) W ith the North Sea Jazz Festival about to swing on to the shores of our southern seas, this would seem a […]

Paul Kirk The rate of HIV/Aids infection in the South African National Defence Force may be as high as 60% to 70% while in at least one military unit, 90% of the troops are infected with the virus. These extraordinary figures, leaked this week, were taken from preliminary HIV testing being conducted by the SANDF. […]

Peter Dickson An average of eight people have died at the hands of the police during the past five months in the Eastern Cape, while 87 people were killed in the 12 months to September 1999. The Eastern Cape arm of the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD), the police watchdog, disclosed these figures this week in […]

I have had the chance during the past few days to read up on your government’s decision to install an international expert commission in order to examine various aspects of the Aids issue. I am deeply troubled (like so many others) about the direction this commission is taking. Clearly, if one looks at the guidance […]

Fiachra Gibbons Hours after picking up the last of five Oscars for his first film, American Beauty – and being declared a “bright shining star” by none other than Steven Spielberg – Sam Mendes was keeping his legendary cool. Even as Hollywood’s most powerful players queued to schmooze him at the post-Oscar parties, Mendes’s mind […]

A celebrity system does exist in South Africa and was very much in evidence at the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees Kathryn Smith When Giovanni de Medici (Frans Marx) took Alfonsina de Medici (Sandra Prinsloo) from behind in Deon Opperman’s Magspel, and with each thrust itemised the various parts of Florence she will own after their […]

Paul Kirk A United States expert on cheating lie detector tests has been inundated with queries from South Africans eager to dodge the tests widely employed in the local insurance industry. Doug Williams, a former detective sergeant in the Oklahoma City police and a former polygrapher for the US government, actively set out on a […]

democracy John Seiler A SECOND LOOK Putting district councils rather than local councils at the pivot of local development reflects a planner’s fantasy: a predictable, uniform, when necessary controllable, and ultimately lifeless process in which basic change takes place quickly and without the awkwardness of competition among disparate economic, social and cultural interests. Yet this […]

Bennie Visser The notion that the Addo Elephant Park in the Eastern Cape may supersede Kruger National Park as South Africa’s premier reserve is one that very few would take seriously. Yet this is exactly what the powers that be on national level believe to be a very real possibility. They say while Addo will […]