Beauty’s Gift is testimony to the courage of author, Sindiwe Magona, and a reflection of her willingness to face up to what is wrong in society. Astrid Stark interviewed Magona for the Cape Times.
The first time I met Dr Sindiwe Magona I suffered sweaty palms and my heart was thrashing about in my throat. Four of us were pitching a drama to the commissioning head of a national radio station. We’d been working on our story for nearly two months and Magona was one of our mentors at the writers’ workshop. We presented our proposal to her half an hour before the final pitch. As we lumbered through the lengthy synopses she fell asleep. Or so I thought. At the end her eyes sprang open. I stopped breathing. “Ok,” she said, “Now let’s slice it.” When we presented our final pitch, the commissioning editor was blown away. Intuitive, passionate, and skilled; Magona had concentrated four months’ work into sixty powerful seconds.
Dana Snyman skryf die afgelope ruk gereeld ‘n rubriek vir By. Die week spits hy sy fyn manier van storie vertel in om die verhaal van Jerome en sy gaatjiebrood te laat lewe. Dana se nuutste boek is Op die toneel.
Patricia is skaars by die agterdeur in, toe vra sy: “En as Dana so onderstebo lyk vanmôre?”
Ek sit by die tafel voor die venster, met die koerant oop voor my, soos ’n padkaart na nêrens: Zuma dreig, Malema bedreig, en moorde, rooftogte en ’n Stormers-nederlaag.
Hulle het ook in die nag weer ingebreek, by Leon-hulle van oorkant die straat.
As medeskrywer van Nelson Mandela se biografie het joernalis Richard Stengel ure in Madiba se geselskap deurgebring. Drie jaar lank het hy hom bykans oral heen vergesel – selfs onder die mees senutergende omstandighede. Op pad met Mandela: vyftien lewenslesse is sy manier om hierdie ervaring met ander te deel.
Dié Afrikaanse uitgawe van Mandela’s Way bied ook aan Afrikaanse lesers ’n nadere blik op dié merkwaardige man, wat deur mense wêreldwyd as ’n lewende legende beskou word. Die lewenswysheid wat Madiba uit sy grootste uitdagings geput het, word hier in vyftien lesse oor die liefde, die lewe en leierskap vervat: waarom dit belangrik is om jou teenstanders fyn dop te hou, waarom waagmoed nie noodwendig ’n gebrek aan vrees beteken nie, en hoekom dit belangrik is om dinge in die lewe te vind waaruit jy plesier en vervulling kan put.
Oor die skrywer
Richard Stengel is die redakteur van die tydskrif Time. Hy was die medeskrywer van Nelson Mandela se outobiografie, Long Walk to Freedom, wat in 1993 verskyn het.
Stengel is ook die outeur van January Sun en You’re too kind. Die dokumentêre film, Mandela, waarvan hy die medevervaardiger was, is vir ’n Oscar-toekenning benoem. Hy is getroud en het twee seuns.
Diane de Beer gives four stars to Rachelle Greeff’s Die Naaimasjien, which showed at the Centurion Theatre in early March. Die Naaimasjien was the winner of the 2008 Nagtegaalteaterteksprys.
This is one of those plays that is going to be part of the South African theatre landscape for a long time to come. Currently in the process of being translated into English, it will run as long as actress Sandra Prinsloo wants to play this particular character.
With most plays, that would probably not be much longer – it's already run for a year and is booked all around the country until the end of this year (from Cape Town to Richards Bay with a Free State season in between). But because of the density of the text and Prinsloo's understanding and empathy with the 81-year-old Magdaleen, who is taking leave of her sewing machine (and a large slice of her life), it seems to have a journey all of its own.
Author André P Brink is a man with a lot to say – as Alan Yu found out at the recent Man Hong Kong Literary Festival. Yu caught up with Brink to chat about South African letters post-Apartheid. It makes for insightful reading:
“Language,” André Brink says, “is the starting point of literature, an invention in and through language.” As someone who writes in both English and Afrikaans, he should know. He tells me that since the transition to multi-racial democracy in South Africa, more literature is written in Afrikaans, often seen to be the language of racial oppression. It is perhaps not so surprising, since Afrikaans was, in the words of Brink, “shaped in the mouths of slaves” which in a process of “creolisation” became the language of the bourgeoisie in the 19th century.
In a wide-ranging, erudite and stimulating lecture at the 2010 Man Hong Kong International Festival, held recently at the University of Hong Kong, Brink talks about South African fiction after apartheid.
He begins by observing that apartheid has not been eliminated, but is “receding”. “The road to freedom for the creation of literature,” he says, “still has to be walked.”
The wheels of justice may turn slowly, but turn they do. Today the Equality Court in Johannesburg found Julius Malema guilty of hate speech and harassment for comments made regarding President Jacob Zuma’s rape accuser over a year ago:
The Johannesburg Equality Court on Monday found ANC Youth League president Julius Malema guilty of hate speech and harassment.
“This court is satisfied that the utterances by the respondent… amounted to hate speech,” said magistrate Colleen Collis.
“The uttered words constitute harassment as contemplated in the Equality Act.”
Malema has to issue an apology – something he’s previously sworn never to do – and pay a fine. We look forward to bringing you his response to the judgment, as and when he sees fit to issue it…
At the awards announcement on Thursday, 11 March in Johannesburg, two readings were given from The Double Crown, and we present them for you here. The first is by Jamaican poet Amina Blackwood-Meeks, who reads from the book’s preface:
The second is a reading given by the author herself:
Die Woordfees is feestyd vir digters en digliefhebbers. Joan Hambidge, outer van die digbundel Vuurwiel, wat onlangs verskyn het, het hulde gebring aan IL de Villiers. In haar huldeblyk praat sy oor de Villiers se Van Jerusalem tot Johannesburg en dra sy verskeie van die digter se verse voor. Lees tot jou tone krul van lekker kry.
By die Woordfees is daar gelet op:
die versoening van die koerantman en digter se twee personas en dat die een as’t ware aangevuur is deur die ander; daar is gewys op die verskillende huldeblyke wat oor die digter geskryf is (o.a. vir Rapport en die Versindaba se webblad); daar is gewys op die enorme invloed wat die digter op my werk gehad het soos onder andere in Vuurwiel; daar is gekyk na die gedig “Chicago” en hoe dit nou gelees kan word as ‘n afskeid van die lewe; en die voortreflike lykdig oor Lorna Vosloo is ook bespreek en ten slotte is daar gekyk na die retoriese strategie: dat die slot ‘n opsomming is wat alles herroep of anders beskou. Dis hoe my twee gedigte ná sy dood benader moet word.
Beauty’s Gift is testimony to the courage of author, Sindiwe Magona, and a reflection of her willingness to face up to what is wrong in society. Astrid Stark interviewed Magona for the Cape Times.
Diane de Beer gives four stars to Rachelle Greeff’s Die Naaimasjien, which showed at the Centurion Theatre in early March. Die Naaimasjien was the 
