Litnet

AI quickly summarises and packages LitNet text material in various formats, such as podcasts, videos and infographics. | KI kan LitNet-teksmateriaal opsom en blitsig in verskeie formate (soos podsendinggesprekke, video’s en infografika) verpak.

He grew up in a good household near Durban. At a delicate age, he learned that he was adopted. It shook his sense of identity, as he no longer was the boy he had been brought up to be. In his recently completed memoir, Lucky bastard, Anthony Akerman focuses primarily on how his life was shaped by the knowledge of his adoption.

One of the songs from her 2013 album Change your world is called “My leaves stay green”. This song was written during her journey through chemotherapy. It is also the title of her recently published book of “poetree”, a collection of pop-up poems inspired by trees that she shared on Facebook during the COVID lockdown.

"We’re on my three-seater couch, but the two of you are huddled on the left. Leaning back, I watch you reveal what you think is hidden." This short story was completed during the Kommadagga workshop and residency at Paulet House in KwaNojoli in the Eastern Cape. The workshop was presented by the Jakes Gerwel Foundation in cooperation with LitNet and Huisgenoot.

"Looking back, these memories remind us that life was woven together by simple rituals, laughter, and tradition. They are treasures of yesteryear, still alive in our hearts, teaching us to value the heritage that shaped us."

Amazwi intends to produce a peer-reviewed and edited electronic edition of the conference proceedings. The submission process will be shared with those whose abstracts are accepted for the conference.

"At the outset, I must make note, on the subject of identity, that I believe that we as human beings are wired to collect identities (plural) and discard identities, from the day we are born to the day we die, and these go way beyond notions of race, ethnicity, colour and nation."

"The driver was a youthful man with a very hairy back, which I could see through the slight space his shirt left. Thobani was the guy’s name. He was cool. Very hairy, but very cool." This short story was completed during the Kommadagga workshop and residency at Paulet House in KwaNojoli in the Eastern Cape. The workshop was presented by the Jakes Gerwel Foundation in cooperation with LitNet and Huisgenoot.

"The clockmaker watched him, unreadable. 'Back? There is no back. You stared into your clock. Time stared back. You were chosen.'"

"In tackling the hopscotch existence of a complicated man who has generated competing and conflicting opinions, Albert Grundlingh has produced a meticulously researched, highly readable and very well-rounded portrayal of Frederik van Zyl Slabbert."

"Both Namibia and South Africa grapple with high rates of SGBV and gender inequality. A key similarity is the presence of dedicated activists and movements fighting for justice. A significant difference is the legal landscape regarding abortion; South Africa repealed the old law, allowing girls as young as 12 to access safe abortion on request, while Namibia still operates under the restrictive 1975 act."

"The best writers are not merely stylists; they are custodians of sensibility. They bring with themselves the heaviness of culture, memory, grief, humour, private ghosts, inherited silences and the rest of the untranslatable textures of lived experience. They write from the grain of their mother tongue. They write from provincial landscapes that the internet has never indexed, not yet anyway. They write from the pain of exile, from the taste of a city’s dust and from history that refuses to be archived. AI, for all its omnivorous reading, knows only what is online."

Listen to a concise overview of Afrikaans content presented in the form of a podcast-style discussion by (American) AI hosts. | Luister na ’n baie kort oorsig van Afrikaanse inhoud in die vorm van ’n podsendinggesprek deur Amerikaanse KI-aanbieders. 

The early bird gets the coffee and the doughnuts!

"The 22nd of November 2025 is a very special day. It is the 85th anniversary of the Holodomor."

This first comprehensive biography of Cecil Rhodes in a generation illuminates Rhodes’s vision for the expansion of imperialism in southern Africa, connecting politics and industry to internal development, and examines how this fueled a lasting white-dominated colonial society.

The 20th edition of the South African Literary Awards (SALA) honoured 49 South African writers, translators and other literary practitioners across 16 categories at a prestigious ceremony in Johannesburg on 11 November 2025.

"With less of his characteristic reserve and more rampant enjoyment, Sole shapeshifts in this collection, appearing as an old man, as a trogon, as a bee, as the sun, as the beloved – with a sideways wink between author and reader."

"At the heart of the novel lies a painful paradox: education, once a promise of progress, has become a burden in a country where opportunity has collapsed."

For November’s play reading, we’re delving into Love in the time of Labarang Hajj by Tasneem Daniels.  The evening will include a table read of the play by actors, followed by a discussion of the work. The discussion will be led by Melanie O’Connor Horn and a panel of experts. Input from the audience is most welcome!