The Conversation
Remembering Hugh Masekela: The horn player with a shrewd ear for music of the day
Trumpeter, flugelhorn-player, singer, composer and activist Hugh Ramapolo Masekela has passed away after a long battle with prostate cancer.
What I learned from Ben Okri about creative writing
Midway through his sentence Ben Okri stands up and turns to the whiteboard. “Who knows their work well?” he asks. The students in the class look at each other. “Someone give me a line, a line of your work”.
Why, a decade on, a new book on Zuma’s rape trial has finally hit home
What’s different this time is that Redi Tlhabi speaks into a South Africa that has changed. The pact of complicity that surrounded Zuma has broken.
Judging the Man Booker Prize: how I read 145 novels in seven months
A daunting prospect. Thomas Hawk, CC BY-NC-SA Back in 2014, Dinah Birch explained what it was like to be a Man Booker …
Alternative currencies are the future: why it matters for development
When I began to teach in 2012, I decided to start my course with an analysis of how money affects social order. What my students found particularly fascinating was the then-nascent world of cryptocurrencies, which I described at length as a crucial f
It’s 30 years since Cuito Cuanavale. How the battle redefined southern Africa
Thirty years ago in southern Angola, four military forces were mobilising for the largest conventional battle in Africa since the Second World War. It was a battle that would have huge consequences for Angola, Namibia and South Africa. Indeed it has