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 […]