A delectable collection of recipes, many by notable South African personalities - like Anneline Kriel (Miss South Africa/Miss World 1974), Pieter-DirkA delectable collection of recipes, many by notable South African personalities - like Anneline Kriel (Miss South Africa/Miss World 1974), Pieter-Dirk Uys (aka Evita Bezuidenhout), Ina Paarman, Jenny Morris, Sarah Graham, Film & TV Producer Themba Sibeko (Hotel Rwanda), among others - all in aid of a worthy cause. Delighted to be one of the contributors to this beautifully bound collection. ...more
Ariel by Sylvia Plath is a grim insight into Plath’s inner turmoil, suicidal attempts (Lady Lazarus), and overall a painful portend signaling her evenAriel by Sylvia Plath is a grim insight into Plath’s inner turmoil, suicidal attempts (Lady Lazarus), and overall a painful portend signaling her eventual suicide. The book was written in the final months of her life
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I am exhausted, I am exhausted— Pillar of white in a blackout of knives. I am the magician's girl who does not flinch. The villagers are untying their disguises, they are shaking hands. Whose is that long white box in the grove, what have they accomplished, why am I cold?
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And your first gift is making stone out of everything. I wake to a mausoleum; you are here, Ticking your fingers on the marble table, looking for cigarettes, Spiteful as a woman, but not so nervous, And dying to say something unanswerable.
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The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me. Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe Lightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby. Their redness talks to my wound, it corresponds. They’re subtle: they seem to float, though they weigh me down, Upsetting me with their sudden tongues and their colour, A dozen red lead sinkers round my neck. ...more
I loved the symbolism and elegantly clean writing style in Nobel Laureate J.M Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians. From the opening lines of the noveI loved the symbolism and elegantly clean writing style in Nobel Laureate J.M Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians. From the opening lines of the novel focused on Colonel Joll's dark glasses, we see that they not only obscure the light from his eyes but at a deeper level, as we discover later in the novel, also the light of morality, thus emphasising the dark, sinister, and brutal nature of his role in the empire's machinery of interrogation. Those dark 'discs' further hint at the shadow Joll's presence would soon cast over the tiny frontier settlement. There are many other seemingly simple scenes in the novel that bear such subtly rich symbolism making this book a wonderful choice, particularly if one needed to write a paper....more
Of Smoke Flesh and Bone is a tender lament of lost love, lost self, ‘madness’ brought on by abandonment and depression, how it shapes life, and the hoOf Smoke Flesh and Bone is a tender lament of lost love, lost self, ‘madness’ brought on by abandonment and depression, how it shapes life, and the hope of healing through writing
‘If my mother had loved me perhaps I would have been a different person. So, I write to silence the pain of the false illusion’
'A charming collection of poems making pitstops along the road of life, recalling love, yearning, regrets, and at times, bursting into playfulness or 'A charming collection of poems making pitstops along the road of life, recalling love, yearning, regrets, and at times, bursting into playfulness or protest, but ultimately, urging one to observe the world without, then seek within.'
- Adiela Akoo
NB: I was given an ARC of 'Once, I Said' by the author, Yunus Amir, with a request to write a review for the back cover. This was my review...more
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