We asked a host of South African writers, most of whom had a new book out in 1996, what their favourite book of the year was Andre Brink, author of Imaginings of Sand: I have no hesitation in nominating as my book of the year the novel Self-Portrait with Woman by the Polish Andrzej Szczypiorski […]

Jacquie Golding-Duffy IN its report last month, the task group on government communications (Comtask), set up by Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, urged government departments to improve relations with the media and ensure speedy responses to queries. I can assure you that the Media Mad column, which appears regularly on the Antenna pages, received no speedy […]

The woes of South Africa’s sex workers suggest that a virginal Richard Branson boobed when he chose a brothel to launch a new product, writes Jacquie Goldin g-Duffy British billionaire Richard Branson seemed to show a fine sense of irony – whe ther intentionally, or not – when he came out to South Africa earlier […]

The newly appointed SABC board has a harder task than its predecessors, warn media industry observers: to salvage the broadcaster from the brink of bankruptcy. The SABC will also have to improve its programme content and deliver audiences as promised if it wants advertisers to convince their clients to use it as a viable advertising […]

WEB FEET Notes from the Net At the end of 1995, Newsweek ran a front cover declaring the previous 12 months “The Year of the Internet”. If that was a true reflection of the impact made by the Net in ’95, then they will have run out of ways to describe 1996, so much more […]

South Africa’s 1996 athletic achievements came about largely despite, rather than because of, the country’s athletics administration Athletics: Julian Drew Looking back on 1996, one might be inclined to regard it as a particularly successful year for the sport of athletics in South Africa. Gold and silver both bore the South African hallmark at the […]

This year, the Environmental Justice Networking Forum has come into its own, r eports Eddie Koch When Chris Albertyn was travelling around the country with a team of environme ntalists to research a new policy paper last year, he met Kraai van Niekerk, f ormer minister of agriculture, in Cape Town. Said Kraai: “You people […]

Over 20 000 people work as black hair stylists and their creative services are in great demand. Judith Watt reports on the growth of glamour coiffure IT is a common claim among South African whites that “blacks” are the people who really know about style. They say it, but how many of them really believe […]

1996 was a big, exciting year for new South African music. Glynis O’Hara gives the run-down on some of the favourites There certainly was a plethora of South African material released this year and the new trend, kwaito, was responsible for wagon loads of it. Kwaito is South Africa’s version of house — contemporary disco […]

What’s green and crinkly and threatens civilisation as we know it? The all-conquering Hollywood dollar. Derek Malcolm takes a sceptical look back at the movies of 1996 I’VE recently seen, though you haven’t yet, Barbra Streisand’s The Mirror Has Two Faces, in which our beloved if narcissistic star is supposed to spend three-quarters of a […]