Opinion
LitNet contributors voice their opinions about current affairs.
Challenges of life
2011-11-02 Where it is safe to do so, transgender people should be out and proud. And where it isn't safe, they should be proud if not out – and they should still work for equality, dignity and human rights so that they – and the generations that are to come – can be out one day. […]
Writer and director Tim Greene on his feature film Skeem
2011-11-01 Tim, Skeem seemed to burst on to the scene out of nowhere. As a film writer I know this can’t be true. What inspired this film and how did the script come to fruition?
In defence of lost causes: giving the devil his due
2011-11-01 Despite being at best a contested figure within the canon of contemporary South African sculpture, Dylan Lewis somehow manages to perpetually show his works in public. Abri de Swardt traverses exclusive golf courses, millionaire country ...
Mike van Graan on the “arts campus”, Africa 101
2011-10-27 Africa 101 explored contemporary trends, icons and innovations in African music, literature, cinema, dance, theatre, visual art and cultural tourism. It took place in the Artscape from 24 to 29 October 2011.
Dismantling fear
2011-10-27 Many transsexual people I have encountered over time have chosen to introduce themselves to friends or acquaintances as being more than "just" transsexuals. Instead of just being honest about having been biologically male or female, and having changed that, they invent stories about having been born intersex – presumably because in their minds the audience […]
South African collector-artist Siemon Allen on his ''collection projects''
2011-10-21 For the past decade South African collector-artist Siemon Allen has been exploring the image of South Africa through a series of “collection projects”. Combining his passions for music and collecting, his studio practice investigates how ...
It makes sense, doesn't it?
2011-10-06 If you look at all the weird and wonderful new bills being tabled in South Africa these days there is little doubt in my mind that the Constitution and the freedoms contained within it are clearly under assault. And those of us whose civil rights and equality are protected by those very clauses in the […]
Katherine Bull reflects on her exhibition performances data-capture: LOST_& FOUND
2011-09-02 During her most recent exhibition at Blank Projects in Woodstock, Katherine Bull presented a series of watercolour paintings created while she was watching the first five seasons of the television series Lost. The sixth and final season was ...
Big Book Chain Chat #15: Sustaining creativity
2010-10-19Helen Brain wrote: “So if you’re engaged in an everyday job that isn’t very satisfying, how do you keep your creativity fresh?” I can see the problem. Boredom at work may lead to boredom at home. And elsewhere. I would like ...
Jan Rabie / Marjorie Wallace Lecture: Ground Zero – the South African literary landscape after apartheid
2010-09-22"All of this would suggest that since the dismantling of apartheid South African literature has entered a phase of unprecedented and explosive growth, and that the energy that had begun to manifest itself even during those dark days is now beginning to erupt."
South Africa on the Shelf: Keeping the conversation alive
2010-07-13 As Chile was walloping Switzerland, fans in Mary Fitzgerald Square were oblivious to the generator that kicked in when Eskom workers left the rest of the Newtown Cultural Precinct in the dark. I wondered what Fitzgerald, said to have been the first ...
South Africa on the Shelf: Feeling gatvol in Foreign Books
2010-06-23I open a new Moleskine and start the outline for the third novel in the series that started with Shepherds & Butchers and continued in The Soldier Who Said No.
Missing the next level: Zef and Die Antwoord
2010-05-25 It is difficult to write anything meaningful about the zef-rap phenomenon now, when it has ceased to be interesting. This is a pity, since Die Antwoord and Jack Parow are the first remotely relevant white South African pop acts in over twenty years. ...
In the name of the other - poetry in self-translation
2010-01-11 This lecture was given at the Literarischen Colloquium (2008) in Berlyn: “Wie es ist, sich selbst zu übersetzen”. Other sessions included discussions about the self-translations of Hannah Arendt, Vladimir Nabokov and Samuel ...
"Its survival is my survival'': Imke van Heerden in conversation with translator Jameson Maluleke
2009-12-09"For me, translation is both a profession and a passion. Creativity in translation is like Kentucky Fried Chicken: a source of finger lickin’ goodness!"
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 ...