Litnet

"The island, created at the height of apartheid repression, is a remarkable play for various reasons. In order to sidestep the authorities, it was workshopped but not initially scripted; it has no single author, and when a script did finally emerge, it provided actors with sufficient latitude as to re-interpret the play’s core messaging in subsequent productions, notably in the 1980s and 1990s."

"Shakespeare always moved with the times; he would certainly have added that music is the food of politics, not only love, judging from contemporary events."

"On the same day Moscow’s chief propagandist warned that Russia had the capacity to ignite a 'Poseidon' underwater nuke capable of submerging Britain with a giant radioactive tsunami, I listened to Freek Robinson on LitNet interviewing Theo Venter on the likelihood of President Putin actually using an atomic bomb."

"Dianne Stewart’s stories are effective because they, too, are rooted in the modern everyday experience of ordinary people with whom we can identify. We cannot predict their ending in most cases, because they are often left open-ended, but it is our imaginations that supply the denouement, depending on which door we open – it puts the reader in the position of being an arbiter of fate."

"But meanwhile, when Viktor was pressed to describe the essential difference between the bilingual Ukrainians and Russians, essentially speaking one another's language, he said the nearest analogy was that of Ireland and England."

"Kleynhans researched Hitler’s spies for his PhD thesis, and, as might be expected, he has included a superb bibliography, which will keep serious students of the Second World War history of South Africa reading for years to come."

"Hazara, taken from the name of Conyngham’s lost dynastic family sugar farm in KwaZulu-Natal (in turn taken from the name of his grandfather’s regiment in the British Indian Army), tackles the torment of confused identity in the ambivalent context of the old Anglo-South African relationship."

"Loose talk, especially pillow talk, can be dangerous. In the arms of a lover, Nelson Mandela’s wife, Winnie, whispers that Nelson will be visiting Durban."

"Space doesn’t allow for a fuller discussion of the author’s conclusions, the main conclusion of which is that a major geopolitical contest between America and China is both inevitable and avoidable."

"We mourn with him and feel his helplessness when patients, friends and colleagues commit suicide. But then, he squares his shoulders and soldiers on, dispassionately analysing the circumstances."

"North Facing is one of a recent stable of coming-of-age books set in South Africa where moral issues are revisited in later life."