Shoes
Shoeless and bible blacked, Sandile Dikeni recounts childhood kickabouts on uneven playing fields in the Karoo. When we formed Shoes Span, nobody had shoes. The reason for our shoelessness was not a secret, it was simply varied. Out of the team of eleven, nine thought that shoes were made for white boys. And the nine […]
You’re… Terminated
Under the parental shadow of Table Mountain, children play on the streets of inner Cape Town. From the comfort of her home, Stacy Hardy watches on. Structurally, Bo-kaap’s sort of a dead-end, the way it’s laid out, like a suburban security subdivision: streets point in, then twist up. The few drive-through streets are tourist roots. On Sundays buses run lines […]
Stickfighting Days
A good sport? Olufemi Terry summons up the spirit of (K.Sello Duiker’s) Ah-zoo-ray in his Caine Prize winning, stinging short story. Brace yourself and remember: the judge’s word is final. Thwack, Thwack, the two of them go at it like madmen, but the boys around them barely stir with excitement. They both use one stick and we […]
Language Games
For poet Karen Press opposites are already united; they depend on each other integrally, thus, no presence without absence, no fear without love. Spiced by independent wit and wry humour, her games mobilizes the play of language. Are you brave enough to play along? Karen Press is a poet and freelance editor. She has […]
The New Normal
Oscar Pistorius first gained international fame amid a raging debate over whether prosthetic blades would give him unfair advantage against able-bodied athletes. Today, the track star finds himself in the middle of a more serious controversy: whether he intentionally shot and killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. Both cases raise serious questions regarding humanity. Gabriella […]