“…The struggle of black people inevitably appear in an intensely cultural form because the social formation in which their distinct political traditions are now manifest has constructed the arena of politics on ground overshadowed by centuries of metropolitan capitalist development, thereby denying them recognition as legitimate politics. Blacks conduct a class struggle in and through race. The BC of race and class cannot be empirically separated, the class character of black struggles is not a result of the fact that blacks are predominantly proletarian, thought this is true…”- (Frank Talk Staff Writers in ‘Azania Salutes Tosh’ – circa 1981)
front cover:
Tosh by Steve Gordon
back cover:
Kippie by Basil Breakey
Botsotso 20: The Dramas of Life (Botsotso, 2019)
Botsotso 20: Drama. The Dramas of Life is an anthology of eight South African plays drawn from the last decade (2008 -18) and engages with personal dilemmas and social realities.
The themes reflect the general unravelling of the 1994 political settlement as racism, poverty and inequality, patriarchy, violence against women and LGBT people, the failure to provide quality education and high levels of corruption, expose widening fault lines. They display great energy and dramatic virtuosity in their exploration of these and other themes and create vivid characters who transcend the rhetorical.
The plays included are “Isithunzi” by Sipho Zakwe; “Sleeping Dogs” by Simphiwe Vikilahle; “The Good Candidate” by Hans Pienaar; “Shoes and Coups” by Palesa Mazamisa; “Book Marks” by Allan Kolski Horwitz; “The Couch” by Sjaka Septembir; “Iziyalo Zikamama” by the Botsotso Ensemble and “Finding Me” by Moeketsi Kgotle.