“Three generations of white South African men were bound together at that table. Vermuelen was the first generation. He defined Africa, made it safe for Basson to defile. I was the last generation, the last to grow up in segregated neighborhoods. Between us was the silent photograph of Wouter Basson. Like a distant father, Basson was absent at the dining table.” – Henk Rossouw (Hole in the White ‘Hood). Also Mahmood Mamdani on Bantu Education at UCT, Gael Reagon on sisterhood, Binyavanga Wainaina on dis-covering Kenya, Gaston Zossou on African intellectuals and more…
Cover:
Strange Fruit by Lewis Allen
Everybody is a Bridge by Anton Krueger (Botsotso, 2023)
The same poet who observes that “everybody is a bridge/’’ then asks in Zen-fashion, “Is it me, or is it you?/ are you reflection or projection / or the light that’s shining through?’’ can also note in a very down-to-earth way, that “If we hadn’t robbed the car washers of their coin/they might not have turned so mean, you know? / Let them earn a little income, bra/ If we’d chiselled our hearts open, tried to see it from the middle/we’d have softened just a little.”
And so, while keeping the big picture of the difficulties before us unflinchingly, Anton imbues such philosophical and political statements with images of very real people and their struggle for survival. But this is one aspect of his writing. As importantly, through these ‘poems, prose- poems, notes & fragments’, runs a whimsical sense of his youth and later years as a white South African whose numerous relatives and friends make their appearance in the form of anecdotal history turned into poetic narrative. In this way, the collection is varied, and very personal and true to Anton’s past and present, a very satisfying buffet that offers a unique taste of his Buddhistic soul.