Opinion
LitNet contributors voice their opinions about current affairs.
Once more, with feeling: The practice of literary translation
2009-11-24 This is an edited version of a guest-of-honour speech delivered at the South African Translators’ Institute awards event, University of Johannesburg, October 2009.Afrikaans as a language of reconciliation, restitution and nation-building
2009-10-06 Paper presented at the Roots-conference held at the University of the Western Cape, 22-23 September 2009 Prof Neville Alexander, Director of the National Language Project, PRAESA Introductory remarks It is by no means axiomatic that a ...Some of the challenges for Africa and countries of the South
2007-05-30Friday 25th May was Africa Day. On this day every year we celebrate the birth of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) on 25th May 1963. This article is an edited version of a lecture that I delivered at the Institute for Social Sciences in ...
A Balancing Act
2007-05-15 Years ago, I was working as an underling to Charles Fryer, for years a formidable fiction publisher in the Afrikaans book industry. The last book he edited was the original Afrikaans edition of Islands by Dan Sleigh, which was later translated ...On Freedom Day we celebrate ... and also remember the place of suffering we come from ...
2007-05-03My friend Franz Marx told me the following story out of a bygone time in the history of our country. A time when, for a short while, the Republic of Lydenburg existed. This Republic was no more than a small town founded by the trekker leader Louis ...
“Go hang!” or gang ho?
2007-04-26I am not one of those who think that bashing President Robert Mugabe is the way to show how "progressive" you are. Fortunately I am just old enough to remember the excitement and pride so many of us felt when the freedom fighter Robert ...
Why is crime in SA so violent?
2007-04-25 Crime is a global problem and is common to all societies, but South Africa stands out for all the wrong reasons. It is the violent nature of crime that makes the South African situation worse. There is a serious lack of regard for human life. The ...Rehearsed postures of conviction
2007-04-06 I Now and again I come across an article that I read and reread, if only to understand why I am uneasy as I read it. Michael Titlestad's "The pitfalls of literary debut" (Sunday Times, 25 March 2007) reminds me of Fred ...The rainbow blues of “De la Rey”
2007-03-30 The storm that has broken loose about Bok van Blerk’s rock song “De la Rey” might be an indication that the smoke is starting to come out of the South African volcano again, signifying that the transformation of society after the ...“De la Rey”: a distracting side show …
2007-03-21It took me quiet a while to take the upheaval around the "De la Rey, De la Rey" song in the Afrikaner community, and eventually in broader South African society, seriously. In fact, long after many of my Afrikaner contemporaries were ...
From Voëlvry to De La Rey: Popular music, Afrikaner Nationalism and lost irony
2007-02-28"The scene is Stilbaai, a predominantly white and Afrikaans holiday town, in the year 2006. A crowd has congregated for a rock show. Zinkplaat, a band from Stellenbosch, plays before the main act, Bok van Blerk."