there is the high veld, the middle veld, the low veld, the bush veld, and now thoughts from the thorn veld,
Johann van Loggerenberg, Tobacco Wars: Inside the Spy Games and Dirty Tricks of Southern Africa’s Cigarette Trade (Tafelberg) SMOKING is considered by many a filthy habit, but according to Johann van Loggerenberg it is nothing […]
Anelia Schutte, For the People: A Small Town’s Struggle against Apartheid (HQ, 2019) MUCH of the struggle against apartheid took place in dorps like Cradock and Oudtshoorn, their particular histories overshadowed by the main centres, […]
Foeta Krige, The SABC8 (Penguin, 2019) BOOKSHOP shelves are weighted with tales of anti-apartheid activism. And the number of titles recording the struggles of post-liberation human rights activists grows steadily. Foeta Krige’s book considers the […]
SURPRISINGLY, there was a well-timed reminder by snail mail: my driver’s licence was due for renewal on 29 April. Surprising because officialdom has publicly said it’s not responsible for reminding us about anything and then […]
Toni Strasburg, Holding the Fort: A Family Torn Apart (Kwela Books, 2019) LIONEL (Rusty) and Hilda Bernstein were among several couples prominent in the South African liberation struggle. When detained on 8 April 1960 during […]
‘DESPITE appalling weather conditions, we were given the go-ahead. We left harbour in failing light and picked up our group of landing craft. They fell into line behind us, twelve ships enormous in bulk compared […]
AT the time of the May 1987 South African general election, when the apartheid government was on its last legs, stickers were distributed reading ‘The trouble … is we don’t know which general we are […]
Adam Habib, Rebels and Rage: Reflecting on #FeesMustFall (Jonathan Ball, 2019); and Wandile Ngcaweni and Busani Ngcaweni (eds) We Are No Longer at Ease: The Struggle for #FeesMustFall (Jacana, 2018) WORLDWIDE, the shelf life of […]
PRELUDE What we call ‘my life’ is but a constantly rewritten version of our own past. ‘My life’ is the mental autobiography with which and by which we all live. What really happened is quite […]
SAM Bourne is the author of political thrillers. His real-life persona is Jonathan Freedland, one of the Guardian’s acute columnists and a commentator on British current events, especially Brexit, and Jewish affairs. His opinion piece […]