Little Anele, disconcertment writ explicably on his 8 year old face, looks on as his dog, Danger, is about to go under the knife. A few minutes earlier Danger had been looking a little flushed; not the playful, gnarling family pet who snags tennis balls mid-air and keeps unwanted scum out of his owner’s yard. …
One would think that J.M. Coetzee’s critically-acclaimed novel, Disgrace , which garnered the author both a Booker Prize and a Nobel Prize In Literature would crescendo into a dynamic multicultural clinking of calabashes. But as fate would have it, in certain quarters the man’s otherwise extinguished work was considered so sacrilegious as to have a …
Anelisiwe Thibane fits like hand to glove the modern image of what those who know about these things expect of a pageant title holder. Well-spoken, more than just a pretty face, a glowing presence to be around, and, yes, a sharp head on her shoulders. “Nothing interesting about my life” she says with a flutter …
It seems that not even Eskom’s stifling bouts of sporadic loadshedding could dampen the pomp and pageantry that is a characteristic sing-along to Heritage Day. Enthusiasts clearly ruffled deep into their wardrobes and so out came the multicoloured skirts, beaded shirts, faces daubed in ochre – a reminder of a time where amaXhosa were proud …
Heritage day colours brighten loadshedding blues. Read More »
Nestled in a quaint, unassuming part of Colesberg lies a small house that goes a long way in accounting for the town’s savourable culinary offerings and the warm service visitors are pampered with when stopping over in the Karoo. The Hantam Hospitality School, manned by three hardline women embodies something of a miracle in a …
If one hopes to peer into Mbulelo “Ndi” Kafi’s affinity to development, then they must first hark back some 30 years to a haggard stonehouse in a flea-bitten eHukwini Location, Colesberg. In it, a cramped four-room misery, lives Ndi with 14 other family members. His grandfather, Dyantyi Kafi, the lone breadwinner is a municipal general …
Packed to the rafters at the Lowryville community hall, Colesberg residents were eager to hear what was on the province’s first citizen, Dr Zamani Saul’s mind this Woman’s Day, 9 August. By 9am the premises were teeming, scores milling outside for seating they would not get, what with the hordes that had enthusiastically descended. In …
Perched on upturned beer crates, the revelers at this Colesberg shebeen (a kasi speakeasy) are nearly a dozen quarts into what is unravelling to be something of a bender. It’s around 10am; eyes are drooping, speeches slurred, and the landlady – a heavy-set woman with a screeching voice – is, in language best not repeated here, intent on scooting them off.
While the hideous, unnerving sentiments towards xenophobia echo out on the streets, my heart recoils back to my late grandmother’s house and a guy nicknamed Edo. Diminutive and soft-spoken, even in a small gathering, Edo is the sort of person you’d hardly know was ever even there. So short he’s easy to miss; nothing about …
To produce convincing stories on difficult topics such as violence, crime and prison, conventional writers tend to look everywhere, everywhere that is, except in their own lives. John W Fredericks thus does not qualify as your typical, run-off-the-mill wordsmith. For his thrilling book Skollie: Oneman’s struggle to survive by telling stories, Fredericks has never had …
