Litnet

"When he has a performance in Barcelona a middle-aged lady, Beatriz, who is a university lecturer, is assigned to care for him during his stay. He becomes obsessed with Beatriz, though she is married."

Has any war in history gone according to plan? Monarchs, dictators and elected leaders alike have a dismal record on military decision-making, from over-ambitious goals to disregarding intelligence, terrain, or enemy capabilities. Conflict scholar and former soldier Mike Martin takes the reader through the hard, elegant logic to fighting a conclusive interstate war that solves geopolitical problems and reduces future conflict.

"We have no idea how things are ultimately going to look in the Holy Land, but I believe we can use Blame me on history as a text to think about the durability of the human spirit, how to be witnesses to pain, and how to be witnesses who are also implicated in that pain."

"We have had this hugely informative, picturesque and colourful journey through the history and economics of the developing world. But where are we?"

In the video Bhakti Shringarpure, Hannes Barnard, Raphael Thierry and Tina Kover discuss translated literature.

"If, as an African in particular, you visit China or want to learn more comprehensively about the lives of Africans in China, buy Noo Saro-Wiwa’s Black ghosts. You can thank me later."

"In his genius way, and always with a satirical and humorous tongue in the cheek, the reader is not only confronted with – but also brought up to date with – the latest science and questions about the reality in which we live."

Apart from being a platform on which South Africans from all walks can express themselves, the AVBOB Poetry Library has become an essential resource for readers and writers of poetry, helping aspiring poets to learn their craft and sharpen their skills. In this way, the AVBOB Poetry Project is fostering a community of poets across the country.

"And then, a mother is necessarily also the bridge through which we enter this world. Every single one of us crossed that bridge to get here, irrespective of the relationships we may have with our mothers throughout the rest of our lives."

"The group writes poetry, publishes an anthology and uses the money raised to fund their next anthology."

"It’s difficult to explain, especially when asked what is and isn’t 'true', and I always end up saying that all the feelings are real, but that I may have made up the incidents and even the characters to put those feelings across."

"The intertexts, coordinates and ontologies offered in the poems create an intricate network of significance in which many voices are deployed, some echoing others, a polyphony that exalts in the musicality of language, the tone and pulse of words, their conjunctions and conjurations."

"Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed must be credited for making me see new beauty in what is vanishing. And for elevating the Durban Casbah to the pantheon of great South African places like District Six and Sophiatown."

African languages for a global audience: publishers, writers, and translators on the art of translation. Join Bhakti Shringarpure, Hannes Barnard, Raphael Thierry and Tina Kover for a roundtable discussion on translated literature.

Political theorist Steven Friedman addresses how and why the current language around anti-Semitism in Israel has been distorted and weaponised to serve the political objectives of the Israeli state. Friedman’s critique examines what this implies for the fight against racism in South Africa and India, and in other parts of the world.

The UCT Summer School takes place from 13 to 27 January 2024. Download the complete brochure here.

"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."

"[South Africa’s] biggest challenge is self-esteem for our own talents – having to be told who’s world-class by international speculators, rather than realising this through our own people and media. Then, we’re also struggling to get the funding of local films right, performing miracles on shoestring budgets and being expected simply to rinse and repeat these miracles."

Call for flash stories for a new anthology to be published in 2024.

A book of affirmations that highlights each of South Africa’s eleven official languages [and] is a love letter to children (especially Black, Indigenous, and people of colour) in South Africa honouring their magic, worth and power.