"Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple."
~ Dr. Suess
"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
~ Douglas Adams
"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass."
~ Anton Chekhov
It’s not a late night – the Sunday Times Literary Awards shortlist announcements. The room, in an eyrie above Empire Road, was abuzz, though, because it’s an evening that rocks. And she saw me before I saw her. There’s no mistaking Yewande Omotoso. She is over six foot and she towers over me. “I haven’t […]
Star Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5 Sing, Unburied, Sing Jesmyn Ward Bloomsbury, November 2017 Online Price: R188 Sing, Unburied, Sing is the fourth novel by bestselling and multi-award-winning author, Jesmyn Ward. It is a poignant tale that explores the dynamics of an African American family trying to survive while navigating racism, drugs, abuse and death. […]
It’s a fact: from the end of April on it is the time for book awards, book festivals and a glory of books falling off presses with such rapidity they become a blur. This marks the beginning of my Christmas reading pile, for there is no way anyone on this planet can read everything. Right […]
We have a delicious glut of public holidays ahead. They stretch from Easter right through until 1st May and each of them holds the promise of carefully contrived long weekends sandwiched around most of them. But which books does one choose to go with the wine that goes with the friends that go with the […]
Star Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5 Hope Is Our Only Wing Rutendo Tavengerwei Hot Key Books, May 2018 Available 3 May A brilliant debut full of Zimbabwe’s golden sunsets. Shamiso is a fifteen year old girl forced by the death of her political journalist father to move back to Zimbabwe from London, this is just […]
SAfm LITERATURE – closing chapter Q1. You present a literary delight on SAfm every Sunday. How do you continuously up your game in terms of exposing South Africans to the textured literary landscape? A – Yup, you’re right, it has been a delight to present a line-up of literati on SAfm each Sunday. When I […]
I love this time of year. I love the plane trees just beginning to turn gold, with the promise of autumn ahead. I love getting a scruffy garden into the last of summer shape. I love my vegetable garden with plants straining to produce their fruit before the sun holds no warmth and they are […]
Star Rating: ★★★★★ 5/5 What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky Lesley Nneka Arimah Riverhead Books, April 2017 Online Price: R380 Lesley Nneka Arimah’s debut is a vibrant collection of 12 compelling stories set in the US and Nigeria. From fantastical myths to a post-apocalyptic world, all the shorts are […]
Star Rating: ★★★☆☆ 3/5 Colour Me Yellow Thuli Nhlapo Kwela Books, September 2017 Online Price: R246 Reading Colour Me Yellow, I felt like an adult watching helplessly over a child’s unfolding plight. A relentlessly heart-breaking story of rejection – first by Thuli’s own mother, then by society, because she is different – this […]
It’s now so long ago it hardly happened: the Christmas summer holiday break. Never has any country so embraced dropping everything and just being. I suspect, though, that many of us, exhausted by the year, find difficulty ‘just being’. One of the avenues of discussion I find difficult to understand is doing nothing. My idea […]
