“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
Surviving Loss by Busisiwe Mahlangu (Impepho Press, 2018)
Mahlangu's debut collection, written between 2015 and 2018, is undoing a house of silence. Her writing is too lived in to be naïve and somehow manages to remain untainted by the cynicism of growing up. If it is true that the artist is the child who survives, then this is the book that the journey spat out. Surviving Loss is a gentle-urgent fight for breath and voice.