Author Archives
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Q&A: Thato Mogotsi, Assistant Curator Zeitz MOCAA – Tracey Rose retrospective, “Shooting Down Babylon” (2022)
Welcome Tracey Rose Zeitz MOCAA welcomes Tracey Rose and her new exhibition ‘Shooting Down Babylon’. The exhibition is officially open as of today and is spread across three floors of Zeitz MOCAA. Not suitable for persons under the age of… Read More ›
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Q&A: The New Brighton Art School – Madoda Honi
With AiW Guests: Dolla Sapeta and Madoda Honi. AiW note: A few weeks ago, Africa in Words published the first of our pioneering posts promoting the work of the New Brighton Art School. We sat down with Dolla Sapeta, its founder, to… Read More ›
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Q&A: The New Brighton Art School – Khaya Gqomo
With AiW Guests: Dolla Sapeta and Khaya Gqomo. A few weeks ago, Africa in Words published the first of our pioneering posts promoting the work of the New Brighton Art School. We sat down with Dolla Sapeta, its founder, to… Read More ›
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The New Brighton Art School
AiW note: Last year, Africa in Words published a fascinating Words on the Times feature with the South African artist and poet, Dolla Sapeta. During his responses Dolla spoke of his vision of “bringing to life an art school in… Read More ›
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The Fragile Beauty of Mangaliso Buzani’s “A Naked Bone”
In 2019, Mangaliso Buzani’s A Naked Bone won the African Poetry Book Fund’s Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry. In a subsequent interview published in Africa in Dialogue, Buzani recalls how, upon hearing the news, he quicky phoned fellow poet and New Brighton resident, Mxolisi Nyezwa. This phone call is one that is particularly apt because when you read A Naked Bone there is, hidden within Buzani’s remarkable and dreamlike poetry, a touch of Nyezwa. There is a fragile sort of beauty that poignantly captures a deeply personal suffering.
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Review: Physicality and Distortion in Dolla Sapeta’s ‘Skeptical Erections’
Mxolisi Dolla Sapeta is perhaps best known for his work as an artist and sculptor. In 2019, he made his literary debut with his first collection of poems, Skeptical Erections, published by Deep South. Reading Skeptical Erections makes it quickly… Read More ›
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Q&A: Deep South’s Robert Berold on Poetry and Publishing in South Africa
Robert Berold is a South African poet and editor, author of four books of poetry and four books of non-fiction. Between 1989 and 1999 he edited the poetry journal New Coin and went on to edit a selection of New… Read More ›
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Review: Moving Futures, Moving Bodies – “Acts of Transgression”
AiW note: We are particularly grateful for permission from Wits University Press to publish on Africa in Words, alongside this review of the volume, two excerpts from Acts of Transgression: Contemporary Live Art in South Africa (2019), edited by Jay… Read More ›
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Festive Favourites: Season’s Reading from Africa in Words
It is that time of year again when the holiday spirit begins to grow. For some, it is a time to spend with family and get away from it all. For others, the holidays might just be a good chance… Read More ›
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Review: Angifi Dladla’s Lament for Kofifi Macu
“It won’t work, it won’t work. This resurrection thing” After fifteen years since the release of his debut collection The Girl Who Then Feared to Sleep & Other Poems, Angifi Dladla is back. The forty poems that comprise Lament for… Read More ›
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Review: poetry from Modjaji Books – ‘Now the World Takes These Breaths’ by Joan Metelerkamp and ‘The Attribute of Poetry’ by Elisa Galgut
AiW Guest: Tom Penfold. Now the World Takes These Breaths by Joan Metelerkamp Joan Metelerkamp is one of the most consistent and articulate poets of South Africa’s post-apartheid literary landscape. Alongside other contributors to the New Coin journal that she… Read More ›
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Review: Mxolisi Nyezwa’s ‘Malikhanye’ – Are there words?
AiW Guest: Tom Penfold. ‘Malikhanye’: Are there words? i cannot understand why man exists and why things happen Mxolisi Nyezwa is a South African poet and Malikhanye (2011),[1] published by Deep South Press, is his third collection of poetry… No…. Read More ›
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Review: Imraan Coovadia’s ‘The Institute for Taxi Poetry’
AiW Guest Tom Penfold. Imraan Coovadia’s The Institute of Taxi Poetry (Umuzi, 2012) is an appeal to the imagination – the reader’s and South Africa’s. Set through a week in the life of Adam Ravens as he tries to make sense of… Read More ›