Tag: poetry

Poet Antjie Krog returns to the landscape of her childhood. The Free State plains enchant her. It is her home, and also the home of her mother, the writer Dot Serfontein. Now in her nineties, Dot is frail and needs full-time care. However, her intellect and sense of humour remain razor-sharp. Her writing is also comparable to that of her daughter.

Siphokazi Jonas is a weaver of seemingly discordant worlds; growing up in an Afrikaans dorpie, attending an English boarding school, and going on annual holidays to a village emaXhoseni during the transition years of South Africa’s democracy made this a necessity.

When an unusual building appeared overnight in a remote northern Cape community in the 1970s, and disappeared a few weeks later, it seemed to point to a series of baffling existential overlaps. Some individuals claimed that occasionally they found themselves on the other side of a restive civil war divide, in identity embodiments that were highly contrary versions of themselves.

When he died in 2014, author Chris van Wyk left behind an impressive literary legacy. The scope of his work was broad – poetry, children’s books, short stories and biographies. But perhaps he is best remembered for his memoir Shirley, Goodness & Mercy, which chronicles his growing up in Riverlea and introduces us to the colourful characters who helped to shape his life and inform the stories he wrote.