Litnet

"We don’t know what violence, what conquest, what inter-'indigenous' strife lies behind the compound name !kam-dhabu. To assume it speaks of a glorious past and the reclamation of an 'indigenous identity' is not only unfounded, but offensively naïve."

Cliffordene Norton spoke to three romance authors and asked them whether they think people in South Africa feel emotionally and socially safe enough to fall in love. The answers were layered. "History shows that people fall in love regardless of circumstances ... During wars, plagues, political unrest. Falling in love is not always a rational act; it happens."

"The most persistent critique of romance is that it is formulaic: read one, read them all. And yet, it is one of the most resilient genres globally. It outsells most others. It sustains fiercely loyal readers. It adapts."

"Holiday has collected and collated significant, sometimes surprising, and always powerful glimmers of wisdom, reminding his readers that it is our duty to view ourselves as indefatigable readers and archivists of personal wisdom."

The signs is a dynamic, Broadway-style musical written and directed by Midlands creative Audrey Mbuyazi. This original production offers a fresh and unexpected retelling of a well-known story – from a provocative new perspective.

"Yes, as a people of South Africa, we still need to have very open, frank conversations instead of hiding behind broad terms like 'rainbow nation', 'nation building' and 'social cohesion', etc."

"For all our pain unseen
for all that could have been
the weeping willow cries
as the day slowly dies"

Join us for the launch of The wildest beauty by Michiel Heyns on 24 February at the Welgevallen Community Psychology Clinic in Stellenbosch.

"For formerly colonised peoples, restoring indigenous names is not nostalgia; it is epistemic independence. It declares: We are not what conquest called us."

"I think identity and especially cultural identity has a lot to do with language – in my case, English and Afrikaans as formative tongues. At bottom, I remain thoroughly South African – rooted, emotionally attached at the hip. But I also find myself very much at home in Wales, original home of my mother."

"South Africa’s 2026 municipal elections are likely to take place in the last quarter of the year. Much will still be written, said and – annoyingly – also warped, over the course of the year. Let us then reflect briefly on what South Africans might expect and want to consider as the elections loom – especially on service delivery, fiscal sustainability, broader political change, and governance and accountability, or the lack thereof."

"He never wanted to hear the same phrase played the same way. It always had to be different, sometimes even shockingly different, but never boring."

"On 6 February 2026 Gayton McKenzie, minister of sport, arts and culture, published a declaration indicating that more towns in the Eastern Cape would be renamed. We have created a link to an online portal for people to object to the changes."

During the week in which World Read Aloud Day took place for the year, Salamino Mosese read from her children's book Neo’s invisible blanket - in Sepedi.

The Endler Concert Series opens its first season of 2026 with an ambitious February to March programme in Stellenbosch that combines international star power with some of South Africa’s most compelling performers and ensembles.

"What you can and should read him for are the myriad ways in which he reminds us of our responsibility and duty to question what we think we know."

"History likes its villains tidy and its violence abstract. Karen Jennings refuses both. Swaartbooij and Titus opens a wound in the Cape’s colonial past and rubs salt into it, asking not who was right, but who was wronged, who was left to carry the memory when the smoke cleared."

"Intermezzo’s quieter wisdom feels unforced and unhurried – and all the more real and tangible for it."

"Diana was more than a poet. She was a moral compass, a voice for the silenced, and a healer who transformed pain into purpose through language. Her work carried the power to restore dignity, to confront injustice, and to inspire healing across generations."

"Roger Lucey’s How to build a house in the mountains is a book about constructing a legacy from your own ruins."