Litnet

"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."

The run-away success of Simon’s Town’s two previous literary festivals has inspired a knockout line-up for 2025. The town is set to host some of South Africa’s most celebrated writers on 14, 15 and 16 March. The festival’s 24 diverse events range from readings, panel discussions and a poetry soirée with more than 30 South African and international writers, and winners of all major literary prizes in South Africa.

The Jakes Gerwel Foundation offers, in partnership with Huisgenoot and LitNet, a mentorship programme to promising emerging short story writers.

"Should one follow the tyrant, or should one follow one’s conscience? Is our conscience the worst tyrant of all? Or might the lack of a moral backbone be the real tyrant?"

"The current fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a hugely complex issue, with roots going deep and, historically, going back a long way – thus being transhistorical."

"Inside this device
Numbers of people and lies"

Thirty years after its premiere and following on from its resounding success, William Kentridge and Handspring Puppet Company re-unite to present Faustus in Africa! at The Baxter from 26 February to 22 March 2025. This collaboration is a re-working of their multi-award-winning 1995 production of the same name, directed by Kentridge, with design and puppet-mastery by Handspring Puppet Company and Lara Foot as associate director.

Celebrating six decades of recognising excellence in theatre, the panel of judges and sponsor Heineken Beverages are proud to announce the nominees for the 60th Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards. The winners will be revealed at a dazzling ceremony on Sunday, 23 March at the iconic Cape Town Stadium.

"The powerful 1969 earthquake that struck the Western Cape in South Africa caused widespread destruction, but also became a moment for the government to reinforce racial segregation under the guise of reconstruction. ... The rebuilding of Lisbon, on the other hand, represents one of the most significant Enlightenment-inspired urban projects of the 18th century."

When writing a poem, do you feel you have to record everything you think and feel about a particular topic, so that your readers will know exactly how they ought to think and feel about it too? Peter Anderson, an associate professor of English at the University of Cape Town, shares a poem that shows how important mystery and understatement are to any creative enterprise.

Africa’s first AI-generated opera is set to disrupt traditional performance art with a bold and immersive production that blends choreography, generative soundscapes and machine learning. Due to be performed at Flipside at the Baxter Theatre from 26 to 29 March 2025, autoplay by acclaimed choreographer and director Louise Coetzer interrogates the intersection between identity, autonomy and the digital landscapes that define modern existence.

"I felt it important to present an alternative version to the highly readable one he so strongly portrays. We are all different and our experiences of, and reactions to, similar circumstances can differ widely. That said, this is probably the best book that I have read in a long time."

"bred barefoot
to stagger over the shards
of yesteryear’s looking glass,"

What makes The Otto Foundation’s book prize unique is that young readers play an active role in selecting the winning titles. Following a nomination process held last year, the shortlisted titles were included in the Otto Foundation’s annual Reading Relay, which is hosted every year among six schools in the District Six area in Cape Town.

"What this team accomplishes is the practice of engagement; everyone in the theatre was laughing, commenting, gasping – An unromantic comedy is, at its centre, loaded with comedy. Taking a look at the inner narratives of the play, I am posed questions that have my eyebrow muscle in a flex."