“…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
Reading the Palms of the Time is an anthology of contemporary South African plays and is the first publication by Diartskonageng.
It features work by renowned South African playwrights Xoli Norman, Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom, Aubrey Sekhabi, Kgafela oa Mogogodi and Monageng “Vice” Motshabi.
The featured work, Hallelujah!, Inter-racial and Book of Rebellations, includes collaborative work between some of these writers and explores questions of race and political power in post 1994 South Africa.