South Africa
‘When a work lands the excitement is physical’: William Kentridge interviewed
Watching William Kentridge’s film Self-Portrait as a Coffee-Pot is like being submerged inside his mind, inside the coffee pot maybe.…
Afrikaners have been endlessly maligned
This I began writing two weeks ago as an overnight guest in a cosy cabin on a farm beside an…
The day I met a sun priest
Palomino, Colombia I’m in a truly wonderful place: the Caribbean coast of Colombia. It’s got more bird species than most…
Why South Africans lost faith in the ANC
A red dawn had just broken when Stephanie Sathege joined the queue to vote at her local polling station in…
Will South Africa reject the ANC?
After many years in power, a corrupt and inept government is finally close to being removed. There is no great…
From Cleopatra to Elizabeth Taylor, women have found jewels irresistible
Helen Molesworth has produced a magnificent history of gemstones – their symbolism, provenance, and the legends surrounding the best ones
It will be difficult for Israel to ignore this ICJ ruling
Yesterday, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered an interim ruling on South Africa’s genocide case against Israel. Its decision…
Beware South Africa’s rising star
South Africa’s new villain
From she-devil to heroine – Winnie Mandela’s surprising metamorphosis
Jonny Steinberg describes Nelson and Winnie’s doomed marriage, and how their posthumous reputations have undergone a startling reversal
The Zulu’s new king brings peace, for a moment
A new king of the Zulu was crowned at the weekend. Thousands in South Africa went to Durban to watch…
Brilliant and distinctive but also relentless: William Kentridge, at the RA, reviewed
William Kentridge’s work has a way of sticking in the mind. I can remember all my brief encounters with it,…
Homage to Sydney Kentridge, South Africa’s courtroom giant
Sydney Kentridge, the protagonist of Thomas Grant’s superb legal saga The Mandela Brief, is that trickiest of biographical subjects: a…
The lost world of the Karoo
Julia Blackburn’s Dreaming the Karoo is the diary of a very bad year: from March 2020, when a research trip…
A belter of a podcast, featuring a mad South African: Smoke Screen reviewed
I go back and forth on tobacco companies. On the one hand, they are merchants of death. On the other,…
Why I was almost thrown out of South Africa
On my 2 p.m. arrival for a week-long work trip to South Africa a fortnight ago, an immigration agent flapped…
Is Omicron now falling in South Africa?
Man makes Covid predictionsand God laughs. Yet with the stakes this high in Britain, every bit of real-world data is…
The promise of South Africa
‘Earth has not anything to show more fair.’ One can admire the view from Westminster Bridge and feel near the…
How 19th-century gold rushes led to a distrust of China
For a brief moment three summers ago it seemed that the clear Idaho air wafting through the Sun Valley Literary…
Letters: Why aren’t Italians fighting for their liberty?
Wage concern Sir: Martin Vander Weyer’s call for higher wages to end the shortage of British HGV drivers (‘Your country…
Letters: The problem with the ‘alpha migrants’
Here illegally Sir: Unfortunately, Charlotte Eagar misses the point (‘The alpha migrants’, 31 July). The Channel migrants may be ‘bright…
The case for travelling abroad
I’m off. In the week when you may read this, my partner and I will be winging our way to…
The real reasons for South Africa’s riots
Sixty-eight years ago, when I was four, my Scottish father and English mother took me from London to South Africa,…
