Author Archives

Robyn Sassen

A freelance arts writer since 1998, I fell in love with the theatre as a toddler, proved rubbish as a ballerina: my starring role was as Mrs Pussy in Noddy as a seven-year-old, and earned my stripes as an academic in Fine Arts and Art History, in subsequent years. I write for a range of online and print publications, including the Sunday Times, the Mail & Guardian and artslink.co.za and was formerly the arts editor of the SA Jewish Report, a weekly newspaper with which I was associated for 16 years. I am currently a Research Associate at Wits University. This blog promises you new stories every week, be they reviews, profiles, news stories or features.

No free lunches in this one horse town

GOOGLE THE NORTHERN Cape town of Blikfontein. “There’s nothing there!” you may shriek, as you try to zoom in closer and closer, discovering a couple of shrubs and a lot of hot air. Indeed. Blikfontein is the focus of this week’s Afrikaans-language radio drama, which broadcasts on Radio […]

Dogs of war

A SKOP, SKIET en donder novel with a conservation twist, Tony Park’s freshly published Scent of Fear is a real page turner. But it takes a special kind of skill to write in the first person, as a dog. Convincingly. And Australian journalist-turned-novelist Park achieves all of this and […]

The fine art of filching sheep

YOU’VE HEARD OF the Leprechaun, the Tokoloshe, Pinky-Pinky, Kalula the rabbit and others – fictional characters that represent the trickster values in a given culture. They’re made up yet believable, feisty and quirky, naughty and a touch sinister, but they evade the structures of society and crop up […]

Whirligig of Africa in black, white

YOU MAY THINK ‘contemporary classical African art’ and immediately call to mind, bright colours, concatenating against one another in mostly geometric patterns. You’re about a third right. Challenging preconceptions about what African art looks like, Kim Sacks has curated another wonderful exhibition, focusing on the black and white […]