Shirley Kossick THE GIANT’S HOUSE by Elizabeth McCracken (Jonathan Cape, R69,95) FALL ON YOUR KNEES by Ann-Marie MacDonald=20 (Jonathan Cape, R84,95) A RATIONAL MAN by Teresa Benison=20 (Vintage, R62) ELIZABETH McCRACKEN was chosen as one of Granta magazine’s 20 best young Am= eri can writers on the strength of her short story collection, Here’s Your […]

New York has legalised ‘extreme fighting’, an anything-goes mix of martial = art s. Ian Katz reports=20 ON March 26, Kenny Monday and John Lewis will step into a ring in an as yet= un disclosed Manhattan arena and do their level best to beat the living daylig= hts out of one another. They will […]

Madeleine Wackernagel AFTER the sharp deterioration in October/November, the business confidence ind ex for December/January showed a recovery of one percentage point. The reason, says the South African Chamber of Business (Sacob), which compiles the index, is partly a turnaround in sentiment, thanks to the stronger rand, the prospect of a cut in interest rates, […]

If a task team’s recommendations are adopted, the Cabinet will continue to decide behind closed doors to whom the arms industry sells. Marion Edmunds reports THE government plans to keep secret its most sensitive arms sales, such as the recent proposed Syrian arms deal, despite calls for greater transparency. A governmental task team will advise […]

THE ANGELLA JOHNSON INTERVIEW IF ever you wanted a walking advertisement in support of legalised abortion, take Glenda Bateman. Fifteen years ago, while working in Johannesburg as a student nurse, she fell pregnant after dating a student doctor for just three months. To put it delicately, it seems a too large condom slipped, and bingo! […]

Gillian Farquhar and Jacquie Golding-Duffy report on whether advertising agents are adapting their creative work in an effort to keep up to date with changes locally THE “new” South Africa born two-and-a-half years ago has brought with it a different set of social and cultural dynamics into the advertising arena. An industry which was predominantly […]

Dennis Mair FOR the next two weeks, Gallery Mau Mau in Cape Town shifts focus from the = ost entation of the art world to the thrill of B-schlock, exploitation filmogra= phy and pure horror. Amid projections and popcorn, administrators David L Dei = and Craig E Parker describe the ensemble as “a terrorism of […]

With the local industry under pressure, South African mining houses are expanding further into Africa, reports Lynda Loxton SOUTH AFRICAN mining houses continue their march into Africa as local mines become more marginal and costs continue escalating. Several speakers this week told the second annual Investing in Mining Conference that local mining companies were increasingly […]

Gustav Thiel BUSINESS is moving – to Cape Town. To establish just how many companies are setting up shop in the Western Cape, and why, Wesgro, the parastatal established in 1986 to promote investment in the region, this week called for a detailed analysis of the trend. Wesgro urban and regional planner Rae Wolpe told […]

Mungo Soggot and Stuart Hess THE records of Cabinet meetings at which some of the most traumatic events of the period before the 1994 elections were discussed appear to have been gutted and sanitised. The records, released to the Mail & Guardian by the National Archives in Pretoria this week, are written in the style […]