Africa
Joburg
South Africa
Greatest AfricansAfricaJoburgSouth AfricaGreatest Africans“As I stood in one corner of that vast tumult waiting for the arrival of the Minister, I felt intense bitterness welling up in my mouth. Here were silly, ignorant villagers dancing themselves lame and waiting to blow off their gunpowder in honour of one of those who had started the country off down the slopes of inflation. I wished for...
In his keynote speech at the recent South African Sunday Times Literary Awards the novelist, Zakes Mda, said that “we write historical fiction to take history to the level of what was it like to be in what happened”. Mda said that as a historical novelist, he writes,historical fiction to grapple with the present. Great historical ficti...
There is a wonderful scene in the film Amadeus that depicts Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart dictating, from his death bed, the words and music of his Requiem mass – a piece thought of as a requiem for the composer’s death which is now regarded as one of the greatest pieces of music ever written. Mozart dictates to the rival composer Salieri, w...
In Mules and Men (1935), anthropologist, creative writer and Harlem Renaissance upstart Zora Neale Hurston relays the evocative folktale “Why the Sister in Black Works Hardest.” Fatigued after the work of Creation, God casts a massive bundle onto the earth. Intrigued by the mysterious object, a white Southern woman during the antebellu...
In recent years, there has been a surge in “female empowerment” stories in the Australian picture book market. This long-overdue movement was largely inspired by the success of the crowdfunded book Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls, spawning many imitations since its publication in 2016.In April 2019, I examined the 100 bestselling pic...
Johannesburg was always a much photographed place from its earliest days. It was a city that grew up with photographers and their cameras. As a town of migrants and immigrants, people wanted to send postcards and photographic souvenirs b...
Buddhism has been adopted by many diverse cultures. In the process it has often changed its form quite radically. Comparing Pure Landpractises of China with Japanese Zen and Tibetan Vajrayana, these can appear like entirely different rel...