Litnet

"No, he is not a rock star lawyer, as are some of those mentioned at the top of this note, but he is instead a humbler man who limited his financial ambitions to work rather with the needy and the under-resourced. He did great work here, at no great profit. The best of South Africa is built on such people making such sacrifices."

John Kani: "This white man is here to suck their brains out!" Athol Fugard, the Grand Man of South African Literature, will turn 92 on Tuesday, 11 June 2024. Rory Riordan is writing a biography of the man who earned the title of "the foremost active playwright in the English-speaking world".

"This note will address these developments in terms of 'Winners' and 'Losers', and of course we must begin with the first of the election’s big stories, the travails of the ANC."

Rory Riordan explains why all of us should demand that the blue team formally work with the green, black and gold team to move South Africa forward.

"Their concerns about diminishing state debt are well motivated and should be taken seriously, and their manifesto includes much of interest and many good ideas. But the last bolts need tightening, the final budget needs better costing, and they should give us, even if in appendices, much more detail about their thinking."

"Thus, these many commitments are not commitments to study and then decide on action; they are clearly phrased as actions that have been decided on, and must now be seen through. We know where we are with the EFF."

"With his having written Manifesto, his patriotism and determination to make South Africa a better place are indisputable. And his willingness to abandon an obviously successful career to see through his ideals is very unusual in a country now dedicated to 'What’s in it for me?'."

"Bradley Cooper has made a grand movie – such a pity it’s the wrong one."

"Maybe it’s good that much of it is now consolidated into one volume – but we’ve heard it so often and for so long that it is hardly now exciting."

"Stop dreaming, take on the issues in front of you, DA, and get back to talking with the ANC. There are a number of South Africa’s biggest cities that are in real trouble (I know, I live in one), and only a determined effort by both the ANC and the DA working together can pull them right."

"Is this a good book? Yes, it is a bloody good book. Is it a masterpiece, as was A Man of Good Hope? No, its descriptions are, but its analysis is sometimes flawed. Would I recommend it as a purchase and as a read? Without a doubt."

"Two biographies of Sir Ernest are both out of print, and Harry has, until this month, eluded biography."

"The ANC is losing ground to the EFF in that vital community, black youth. Young people worldwide are not interested in attending monthly meetings at which elderly people give rambling talks on the proud history of their movement – young people want action, protests, burning tyres, walking on and over the lines of legality. This the EFF offers, while the ANC Youth League is moribund, conceding this cohort of voters to the EFF."

"But, of course, the cream on the cake is the extraordinary character that Field has created in Lydia Tár, and Ms Blanchett’s rendition of her is off another planet. Only vintage Streep could compete with Blanchett as Tár. It is an experience of an exceptional kind to be able to witness this performance."

"In 1994, ignorant of this future, and on a national consensus of all political parties, we set out to do something that no country before us had done – we set out to deliver a welfare state to a country with a rapidly growing population, in the absence of an oil bonanza or some such."