It is a brave new world that the third edition of the Cape Town Book Fair, subtitled <i>Words Create Worlds</i>, encounters from June 14.
But there’s no shortage of cookery books, writes Darryl Accone.
A tapeworm, a cockroach and the famous dead are among the characters in Nadine Gordimer’s <i>Beethoven Was One-Sixteenth Black</i>.
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/ 1 February 2008
As the People’s Republic prepares to celebrate the Year of the Brown Earth Rat, Darryl Accone reviews a new crop of titles about the country.
It is almost 40 years since Roland Barthes announced the death of the author and called for the "birth of the reader" in that annus mirabilis of French history, 1968. For Barthes, it was the reader who should decide literary meaning. To a degree, authors were already playing this game before Barthes.
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/ 19 November 2007
A breakdown in agricultural support structures appears to have sparked a crisis in the Land Bank. Allegations of mismanagement have dogged the institution in recent years, but the emerging farmers the bank is meant to help have been left worst off.
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/ 6 November 2007
Every province deserves one, but thus far only Mpumalanga is so blessed. Deeply researched, written and edited with admirable clarity, and attractively presented, Mpumalanga: History and Heritage (University of KwaZulu-Natal Press) is the <i>Mail & Guardian</i>’s choice for non-fiction book of the year, writes Darryl Accone.
Non-Chinese readers have never been as well supplied with works on China as they are now. Darryl Accone reviews three new books.
Every generation has its preferred scholarly Shakespeare series. For my parents it was The New Shakespeare, edited by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch and John Dover Wilson. Replete with the fruits of early and mid-20th century scholarship, the Cambridge was gloriously attractive too, its text design by the celebrated American typographer Bruce Rogers being both functional and aesthetic.
The Cape Town Book Fair has achieved much in its second year, writes Darryl Accone.
Darryl Accone examines the culture and commercial imperatives of book awards
It was from Canton, now known as Guangzhou, that the first wave of Chinese immigrants sailed to South Africa in the 1870s. There had been Chinese in the country well before: the Dutch brought Chinese labour from their colony of Batavia as early as 1658, for example.
Yellow Peril journalism is on the rise once more, both abroad and much closer to home, writes <b>Darryl Accone</b>.
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/ 23 February 2007
<b>Darryl Accone</b> reviews two great literary traditions, <i>Granta</i> and <i>The Paris Review</i> .
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/ 13 October 2006
<i>Disgrace</i> earned JM Coetzee the distinction of becoming the first writer to win the Booker Prize twice, reports Darryl Accone.
Japanese writer, Haruki Murakami has won the world’s richest short story prize, the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, for <i>Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman</i>, reports Darryl Accone.
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/ 8 September 2006
Darryl Accone pays tribute to Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz, the first and only Arab winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, who died recently.
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/ 8 September 2006
Take a conspiracy of clowns, a firebug and a tinder-dry Cape Town and you have the ingredients for <i>Touch Wood</i>, an incendiary piece of environmental theatre based on the advent of fires that ravaged the Mother City in the summer of 2000. Darryl Accone reports.
Darryl Accone looks at a new crop of titles in the much lambasted genre of crime thrillers.
Darryl Accone delves into the world of dick-lit, a world new local imprint Two Dogs is eager to dominate.
Ivan Vladislavic’s recent writing shows in detail the effects of the transforming city on individuals. Darryl Accone reports.
The threat to independent book dealers is very real and it is growing, writes Darryl Accone.
Everyone loves a winner, but it does not follow that joint winners will be doubly loved. Darryl Accone reports.
It’s the time of the literary year for those who love awards, reports Darryl Accone.
English is now the most secure — and least expected — of lifelines for Afrikaans, writes Darryl Accone.
Darryl Accone takes a look at the recently published, <i>African Road: New writing from southern africa 2006</i>.
During apartheid, the monologue tended to prevail in the best of South African drama. Perhaps this was because theatre saw it as its task to create an opposing voice to the dreary, but clearly effective, monologue of Afrikaner nationalism. To the propaganda of the state, which denied the humanity that runs through all of us, […]
This year’s World Book Day coincides with the release of the Exclusive Books Homebru showcase of local literature. Darryl Accone checks out the list.
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/ 17 February 2006
Darryl Accone attends a gathering for Latin American essayist, literary historian and author Carlos Fuentes.
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/ 17 February 2006
Granta’s new issue shows writers grappling with a personal Africanness on a continent of hope, writes Darryl Accone.
A gathering of 26 writers from four continents, the Time of the Writer festival, held in Durban last week, explored the concepts of identity, place and home. Invited writer Darryl Accone shares his views.