There is the high veld, the middle veld, the low veld, the bush veld, and now thoughts from the thorn veld,
Evelyn Groenink, lncorruptible: The Story of the Murders of Dulcie September, Anton Lubowski and Chris Hani (Privately published, 2018) IN February 1990 we liberated the contents of the banned book cupboard in the local university […]
LAND restitution: you will not find a mainstream political party or commentator in South Africa who does not fervently support it as an essential prerequisite of the nation’s future. The current populist cry (and increasingly […]
Brian Willan, Sol Plaatje: A Life of Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje, 1876–1932 (Johannesburg: Jacana, 2018) MAGISTERIAL is an apt description of this massive biography – for its depth of research, breadth of context and precision of […]
THESE are troubled times globally for pluralism and liberal democracy; and especially in South Africa whose rainbow nation gloss has long looked thoroughly tarnished. In recent weeks the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), third largest party […]
Mandy Weiner, Ministry of Crime: An Underworld Explored (Johannesburg: Macmillan, 2018) ALL countries have a criminal underworld. But when it merges with the overworld, society is in deep trouble. Mandy Wiener’s latest book concludes that […]
Ian Macqueen, Black Consciousness and Progressive Movements under Apartheid (Pietermaritzburg: UKZN Press, 2018) IN popular perception Black Consciousness (BC) is often portrayed as a breakaway, isolationist tendency; a mirror image of apartheid promoting the interests […]
LAST month we buried our mother. Her ashes lie in a peaceful, but well-frequented, English village churchyard directly under the highest point of the Cotswold hills; close to those of our father. At her funeral […]
Anneliese Burgess, Heist: South Africa’s Cash-in-Transit Epidemic Uncovered (Cape Town: Penguin, 2018) VIOLENT crime is a long-standing South African tradition and at the top of the hierarchy are the gangsters who hijack cash-in-transit vehicles. These […]
‘POLITICALLY and morally accountable for gross violations of human rights’: the author of this statement is South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC); and its subject is Winnie Madikizela Mandela (WMM) who died on 2 […]
STEPHEN Poliakoff is a prolific and highly successful scriptwriter and film director, a Londoner by birth and career and now in his mid-60s. Like so many creative and accomplished Britons he is of relatively recent […]