Litnet

Eclectica Contemporary presents In Afterland, a solo show by Lien Botha from 6 to 28 March 2025. Karen Press writes, "The compositions of In Afterland enact a form of scrutiny that confronts many pasts with a generous clarity of vision and an invitation to recompose them for a redressed future."

Anet Ahern will be in conversation with Stephen Cranston at the book launch of The Mavericks on 19 March at Exclusive Books, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town.

"Only Pinter, winner of the Nobel Prize, can match this all-round skill set – but Pinter operated in London, with possibly 50 theatres in walking distance from his home. Fugard operated from Port Elizabeth."

"Quiet time with the president is a memoir that shows a country unfolding through the lens of a frontline medical worker and the decisions he felt forced to make during an important time in history."

"I wanted to love A thousand eyes on you, but it tries to be too many things at once, and in doing so becomes a kaleidoscope of almosts."

"Athol believed in me and my anger and I believed in him and his cool temperament and that the use of words is a more powerful weapon of change."

As an artist, his words carried the weight of history and the depth of lived experience. As a playwright, his legacy continues to inspire generations of playwrights who strive to tell stories with courage and conviction.

"Athol was spending increasingly longer periods working away from South Africa, but he always returned home to write. He told me he couldn’t write anywhere else. He had to be at home."

Life and times of Michael K is a literary masterpiece by JM Coetzee. The stage adaptation, created by Lara Foot and the Baxter Theatre in collaboration with the Handspring Puppet Company, will have a run at the Market Theatre from 27 March to 13 April 2025.

"Can Xue’s writing operates on the logic of dreams, and as such, the experience of reading I live in the slums is one of continuous disorientation."

"China is using military training exercises with African forces to enhance its expeditionary capabilities and geostrategic goals."

On Sunday, 23 February 2025, the life and work of Breyten Breytenbach – who passed away on 24 November 2024 – was celebrated at the Breytenbach Sentrum in Wellington. Herewith the text version of Francis Galloway’s talk as part of the event.

The programme for Amazwi’s 2025 Literature Heritage Ecology Conference has arrived. There is a great range of papers from a wide range of disciplines.

"Goodnight, the boy whispers to the sun,
not understanding farewell."

"Theft is the first novel Abdulrazak Gurnah has released since winning the Nobel Prize for literature in 2021. Epic in a true sense of the word, it follows the intertwining lives of three Tanzanians, Badar, Karim and Fauzia, and their coming of age in the fast-changing world of Zanzibar and mainland Tanzania."

"Jane Mpholo-Mehlape’s solo performance Fragmented left a deep imprint on audiences at Pacofs on 23 February 2025. ... A bold fusion of storytelling, poetry and immersive audiovisual projections, Fragmented blurred the lines between theatre and film, creating an emotionally charged atmosphere."

The 2025 edition of the Adam Small festival was staged in Pniël from 21 to 23 February. Festival impresario Darryl David shares his thoughts and photographs.

In Desire at the end of the white line Azille Coetzee examines a range of contemporary Afrikaans popular culture texts to demonstrate how the stories that white Afrikaans women tell about themselves keep them white and apart. In this video, she discusses her research with Lou-Marié Kruger. AB Jantjies was the videographer for LitNet.

"Winehouse was a tiny person, but larger than life. Her unbelievable musical career was eclipsed only by the scandals that followed her wherever she went. Wednesday night’s show certainly alluded to the scandals, but it remained a musical tribute."

"When cartographers come to study us,
they’ll find no clear borders, no legend
to decode the ways, we have merged."