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Mail & Guardian

Simon Nkoli

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Unabashedly sassy: Nkoli is a vogue-opera that blends opera singing with a live orchestra, rapping, lip-syncing and voguing. Photo: Supplied
SOUTH AFRICAN THEATRE

‘You strike a queer, you strike a rock’: How ‘Nkoli’ revives the legacy of Simon Nkoli

A vibrant vogue-opera celebrates anti-apartheid and LGBTQ+ activist Simon Nkoli, blending history, spectacle and political resistance with dazzling theatrical flair. The…

  • Aarti Bhana
6 min read
After being diagnosed with HIV at 33, retired Constitutional Court justice Edwin Cameron never thought he’d make it to 40. He’s now 73 and part of a generation that is growing older thanks to antiretrovirals and, he says, the activism that made sure it was available in South Africa. Photo: Stefan Els
AIDS
Video

HIV made him expect to die at 40. At 73, Edwin Cameron asks: Who’s planning for our ageing survivors?

At 33, the retired Constitutional Court justice thought he had, maybe, seven years left. His story traces the arc from certain death because of Aids to a chronic, manageable…

  • Tanya Pampalone
  • Mia Malan
14 min read
The size of South Africa’s LGBTI market — comprising lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people — contributes at least R250 billion to the economy every year. (RAJESH JANTILAL/AFP via Getty Images)
BLACK GAY MEN

We need more black gay men in the public sector

Government structures in South Africa have been shown to host the greatest, albeit subtle, homophobia towards black gay men

  • Khethukuthula Gumede
5 min read
uNobantu noMajola, in which protagonist Nomalizo Khwezi assumes the form of literary character Thembeka kaKhalipha, as depicted in a Lovedale Press classic, AC Jordan’s 1940 novel Ingqumbo yemiNyanya (Athi-Patra Ruga)
ART

Athi-Patra Ruga’s new exhibition: The stain at the end of rainbow

Athi-Patra Ruga’s latest exhibition, ‘Interior/Exterior/ Dramatis Personae’, takes his characters on transformative journeys

  • Kwanele Sosibo
10 min read
BEV DITSE

The fight of his life

Gay and Lesbian Pride week celebrates Simon Nkoli, a selection of whose letters are published on October 1. Shaun de Waal, who co-edited the volume, writes about Nkoli’s unique…

  • Shaun De Waal
5 min read