Forty-two-year-old Zim Ngqawana studied jazz at the University of Natal before going to the United States to train with the likes of Max Roach and Wynton Marsalis. On his return…

At the time of his tragic death last February, the young jazz pianist Moses Molelekwa was putting the finishing touches to an album recorded with one of the top kwaito…

At 51 years old, Mandla Langa is now one of the ruling elite. He was formerly the ANC head of culture in London during his period of exile (1976 –…

Njabulo Ndebele was the first black writer to pleed for « the rediscovery of the ordinary » (title of a critical essay published in 1991). The 53-year-old rector and vice-chancellor of the…

Zakes Mda returned from exile in America in 1995. He has since given up teaching African literature to write novels. His latest novel, The Heart of Redness, is due to…

Ja, the Cape Flats. They are like a complicated underground sewage system. Everyone I know there would like to live somewhere else but they pretend they are having the time…

« Nelson Mandela’s autobiography is South Africa’s biggest bestseller in recent years … [This] provides some clues about the state of South African publishing, » wrote literary critic Shaun de Waal in…

The first two publications in this series of monographs on South Africa’s contemporary artists suggest that the series will become a highly appreciable tool for professionals, and a rich introduction…

« How can those pathetic liberals say that apartheid will still be around in thirty to forty years? Don’t realise that that shows just how little they are willing to do,…

Although he is only 29 years old, Stephen Hobbs already has a full career behind him. From 1994 to 2000, he was Manager of the Rembrandt van Rijn Gallery, situated…

Huge, dark silhouettes stand out against the apple-green landscape. In his studio, Kay Hassan cuts up the Pepsi-Cola and Omo washing powder posters he gets directly from the printers. He…

‘Mielies, Mielies ,R2, Mielies’shouts the mielies seller on the corner of Pim Street. People move across the city, heading for the Bree St Taxi Rank Saturday Afternoon in Johannesburg is…

« Two photographers – one white and one black – were on the scene of one of South Africa’s first necklacings. A tire was put around the neck of a woman…

A shattered mirror. Post-apartheid South Africa’s past and present are scattered like the pieces of a puzzle that cannot be put together again. The reality of what apartheid was is…

« Welcome to the new consciousness of derearranged senses we utilise everyone » Leseko Rampolokeng, 1996.In January 1998, at the very outset of Africultures, we decided to report on the revival of…