Litnet

Invitation: Road to the ballot – three leading South African journalists unpack the state of the nation and what it means for us.

"The action takes place on the deck of an ocean liner during an overcast, windy evening, circa 2025. The weather is inclement and, as such, creates a sense of foreboding. Dim deck lights provide illumination, and several cabin lights are on." Janine Maske shares a dark drama text with LitNet’s readers.

"That is a gift from the grave of history, not the promise that the dead can be restored, or that the past can be made innocent, but the knowledge that their lives need not end with them. Someone can still bear witness."

"For you-and-me
From now until forever
My favourite place to be"

Apartheid’s granddaughter is not a story of guilt or absolution, but of courage and repair. It’s an invitation to white South Africans to face their inheritance with honesty and courage.

"This is where the current campaign could become more intense."

Needed: A cool head who likes to read. Skills needed for the job: Understand Zoom and have enough technical know-how to connect computers and microphones to a simple sound desk as well as patience with people who speak book, not tech.

Proposed chapters can be in any language and take the form of creative writing (poems, short stories or other texts), personal reflective essays, academic studies or translations of her poems (three to six poems, with an accompanying reflective or academic essay on the translation process).

"This latest wave of gender-based violence has sent me back to a book I read a few years ago: Cristina Rivera Garza’s Grieving: Dispatches from a wounded country, translated by Sarah Booker. I haven’t been able to put it down since."

"Prima facie aims to rip the law apart, and it completely succeeds in its goal. The law can be seen as how we will be judged, but the playwright, Suzie Miller, turns this notion on its head and judges the law."

After becoming the fastest selling and the first sold-out production at Suidoosterfees 2026, the darkly funny A woman alone, starring International Emmy-nominated actress Kim Engelbrecht, heads to the Toyota Stellenbosch Woordfees this weekend.

"She heard the beep of an electronic lock, assuming it was the room next door. Her own room door opened. Shockingly, unexpected."

"The problem was that Benny had no intention of sticking to his minor role. Every time he walked onto the page and into a scene, he lit it up and made things happen."

"It is much more than a singular thriller or whodunnit, having the depth of conflicting and diverse multi-voiced stories that link to Shalom Court in an impoverished society."

"I give a lot to my readers, treating them as guests who enter my imagined spaces, in the way I would welcome them into my voorkamer, reading to them while offering biscotti and Turkish coffee."

This two-hander is written to be performed on 27 September 2026 in front of the White House just after 3 000 white crosses have been planted. The play is dedicated to Donald Trump, the great leader who inspired this.

"Doggone days is an anthology, a florilegium, of vibrant seeing in its colour photos, enhanced by Darryl’s use of the artistic/photographic triangular structure to create powerful vistas, landscapes and portraits."

"The inclusion of real historical figures and intertextual references add an evocative depth that will linger in the memory of this reader. Nonfiction teaches by means of facts; fiction, by means of imagination. Multitudes confirms this."

"Deane allows her readers to breathe and take note of their bodies (disabled or not). We look forward to what comes after 'but' from Deane’s pen."

"Multitudes is home to many things: It is a collection of layered histories, philosophies, thoughts on architecture, intertexts and a place for love stories to nestle."