Zoo City, the award-winning novel by South African Lauren Beukes, is to be turned into a film. Producer Helena Spring, also a South African, won the rights, and will be looking for a director. Spring’s credits range from the Oscar-nominated “Yesterday” and “Red Dust” (a not so good courtroom drama about the Truth and Reconciliation […]
By Brett Davidson Mobile phones are often touted as the solution to the digital divide, and the answer to a range of development problems. There is undoubtedly a huge growth in mobile phone access in the developing world, and the possibilities this presents are indeed exciting (innovations in mobile banking and mobile health are just […]
Cartoonist Andy Mason recently published a history of the art form in South Africa. What’s So Funny? Under the skin of South African Cartooning is the only book of its kind that traces the origins and development of cartooning in South Africa, and its political place in the socio-political context. We send him some questions.
This is an interesting little video, presented as a history of the world according to Wikipedia. They’re right it is a history, not ‘the history’ Some say it shows how Eurocentric Wikipedia is. Yes, but that in turn just shows all sorts of other things: who has internet access and time to write Wikipedia articles, […]
Coinciding with a senior government official in South Africa channeling the views of Apartheid ideologues about race, the online publication The Daily Maverick Online features a profile of Jonathan Jansen, the current vice chancellor of the University of the Free State. Jansen is a prominent educator and public figure (and prolific writer) in South Africa, […]
Just about this time last year, Uganda lost a priceless part of its cultural heritage when the Kasubi Tombs were burnt down. The tombs were a UNESCO World Heritage Site and were built in 1882 – the burial place of four Buganda kings. Now it seems another cultural site faces destruction. Global Voices reports on […]
Brett Davidson In a documentary broadcast recently on the BBC, the British DJ Scott Mills travels to Uganda and reports on the rampant homophobia there. (That’s Mills, above, in a still from the film with Ugandan gay rights activist, Frank Mugisha.) Technically, Uganda may not be the very worst place to be gay. Homosexuality can get […]
Has there been a deafening silence from African artists and musicians following the murder of gay activist David Kato? This Is Africa seems to think so, and I can find nothing to contradict them. As that blog points out, musicians are usually the first to speak out on behalf of the underdog. But not if you’re […]
After years of working in the United States, where they pay female drug users $300 to agree to be sterilized, Project Prevention has begun branching out to other parts of the world. Following a luke-warm reception in Britain, the organisation has now turned its attention to Kenya where it plans to start paying women living […]
A new public service announcement by the South African alcohol beverage company Brandhouse, warning of the perils of drinking and driving, is perhaps a more powerful argument against copywriting while drunk. It’s also more evidence of the garden variety racism that circulates in South Africa’s advertising industry and in polite circles. For those clueless to South Africa’s […]
