Sithole is like a contemporary South African Jane Austen in her work. The grand narrative in it all is the idea of a young woman nursing dreams of “Being the Bride” and living happily ever after. The first part, of course, is the headline and the rest, taken for granted.
The story paints a hopscotch series of leaps between 1880 and the present, in the light of rhino poaching, trophy hunting, illegal aliens and other such crimes, often leaving you on one cliff’s edge as a chapter ends, and finding you on another, 100 years later, as the next begins.
Taking you unflinchingly to the bedside of his elderly mother, flailing with dementia but sometimes starkly spot on in her lucidity, Peter Godwin’s memoir, ‘Exit Wounds’ laced with alliteration vigorously contemplates the complex texture of the life of a Zimbabwean-born war correspondent, with British ties who currently calls America home.
In Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s 2024 novel ‘Before we forget kindness’, the quality of line work in the descriptive passages is so achingly beautiful and so fascinatingly spare, it makes you feel like you are reading Japanese. The metaphors are simple, clear and rich. The sense of colour is memorable and strong.
CONJURING UP A whole bunch of clichés regarding fishes and sustainability, Like Water is for Fish promises an insight into storytelling and the magic it tosses into our midst, yet it feels in so many respects like a tick-box exercise on a bucket list. Garth Japhet, the co-founder […]
WHERE WERE YOU when Nelson Mandela was released from prison? Who were you when human faeces were plied on one of South Africa’s most prominent public sculptures? Why aren’t you vegan? How did you react to news of the Marikana massacre in August 2017? One of the classic […]
BEING ALIVE ON this African continent is a very complicated thing, particularly if the home in which you were raised has become lethally hostile to you. Investment analyst by day, fictional writer by night, Bulawayo born Sue Nyathi, who burst onto readerships’ awareness in 2012 with her debut […]
ansunecilliers
beckkglass
Chester Miggels
Gillian Rennie
elizhanduvenhage
erinventer02
Geoff Sifrin
godukazinobulali
henricopg
huibrechtdehart
isabeausophiajoubert
jessicajoubert
Kapisha Ramraj
kaylamullerr
matthewvanderwalt
meereieliefde
olgalouiselemmer
Peta Kaplan
Robyn Sassen
shanelschoombee
thembanhlapoart
Willem Pieter
zainabchoonara
Recent Comments