Poets Are Hurting: Lesego Rampolokeng in Conversation with Mafika Gwala
Mafika Gwala emerged as a significant writer in the 1970s during his association with the black South African Student Organisation and the Black Community Programmes in Durban. In 1973 he edited Black Review, and his short stories, essays and poems have been published in numerous journals and anthologies. His poetry collections include Jol’iinkomo (1977) and No More Lullabies (1982). […]
Accordion Cowboys
Tseliso Monaheng explores famo, a popular form of accordion music that blends storytelling, spoken word and rapid-fire rap styles to reflect the lives of ordinary Basotho. Famo has spawned several successful musicians, but it has also promoted rivalries among groups and individual players in Lesotho – some of them deadly. The story of Lesotho’s traditional music scene […]
Why music is better than photography
Why music is better than photography: An argument in two parts by Sean O’Toole [1] “Hey boy, stand there. Between Sonny and Miriam. Yes… no, more to your left. Your left, boy… that side. What’s wrong with you, are you stupid like?” The young man in the pencil tie shuffles into place. Slowly, very slowly, something begins to cohere. A photo, […]
Palestine Journey
In February 2005, Ishtiyaq Shukri’s novel The Silent Minaret, won the first European Union Literacy Award for first novel by a South African writer. The novel ends at Israel’s Apartheid Wall in Qalqilya. Here, in his first essay following the award, Shukri travels to The Wall in Palestine to see the fact that informed his fiction. London, Sunday 11th September 2005 […]
Searching for Augusto Zita
From the Namib desert to an interrogation room on US soil, Victor Gama tracks Augusto Zita and inadvertently uncovers South Africa’s nuclear weapons programme. In March 2012 I travelled to Chicago to premiere my recent work, Vela 6911, composed on a commission by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. On arrival at Chicago O’Hare from Portugal I was stopped at immigration. Despite […]