Durban will once again host a number of international and South Africa poets, when the second Poetry Africa festival takes place at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre, from May 4 to 9. Some 20 poets will present and read from their work and engage in discussion. Jamaican-born musician/poet Linton Kwesi Johnson is the opening-night headliner. Well […]
Duncan Mackay : London Marathon When Dick Beardsley came over from the United States in 1981 to run in the first London Marathon, he received R125E000. This year R1,25-million was set aside to be divided between two runners, the respective Olympic and world champions, for appearing in the race last Sunday, with Josiah Thugwane of […]
Barbara Ludman REIGN IN HELL by William Diehl (Heinemann, R99,95) LUCKY YOU by Carl Hiaasen (Macmillan, R84) Thrillers reflect Americans’ concerns more accurately than CNN – and when one has books by two bestselling writers focusing on right-wing militias, it’s a fair bet that that phenomenon figures in American nightmares. Militias rose to general consciousness […]
Ferial Haffajee South Africa’s trade mission to Angola jetted into Luanda this week with a mandate to fix what apartheid strong-arm tactics destroyed. Pundits say it will cost Southern Africa more than R50-billion to rebuild the rail and road links the previous government helped to destroy. This week President Nelson Mandela and his trade gurus […]
Chris Roper As Mark Coetzee’s black and white photographs once again raise their shapely penises on either side of the acrylic painting of a South African monument that constitutes the middle panel of his Triptych, censorship once again raises its ugly little head in the middle of conservative Stellenbosch University. The last time this happened […]
Anthony Egan LAST DAYS IN CLOUD CUCKOOLAND: DISPATCHES FROM WHITE AFRICA by Graham Boynton (Jonathan Ball, R99,95) This book is hard to categorise. Its title makes it sounds like journalism; parts of it read like an attempt to understand the democratic transition in South Africa. Much of it is reminscences of a childhood in what […]
A policeman known for his fight against child abuse is found guilty of murdering the man who raped his daughter, writes Angella Johnson The story would make a powerful Hollywood script, if it had not already been done in the movie A Time to Kill: a young girl is raped by a local man who […]
Tom Quoin : Architecture We will soon have a home for our Constitutional Court. If construction proceeds as expected, it should be ready for occupation early in the year 2000. The building will stand on the upper reaches of the newly named Constitution Hill, north of the painfully memorable Fort, Johannesburg. It will overlook the […]
US Martin Kettle Organisers of marathons and long-distance road races in the United States are barring or limiting entrants from Kenya – the most frequent winners – and offering higher prizes to American competitors. The move is overtly anti-African and, in many eyes, racist. The prestigious Bolder Boulder race in Colorado has just restricted Kenyan […]
He always knew he’d have a place in film history. He’s arrogant, precious, pretentious, solipsistic and a bit of a genius. Simon Hattenstone meets Quentin Tarantino Quentin Tarantino jives on to the stage of London’s National Film Theatre. His head nods like a hyperactive chicken. He’s walking the walk, waggling that famously big bottom, preparing […]