Crime fiction has come a long way. A 100 years ago, if a character in a crime novel had dark skin, a hooked nose, differently-shaped eyes, or even just an accent, it was a known signifier of villainy. These tropes were recognised and accepted by readers and writers alike. It must have made writers’ lives […]
Fiona Snyckers
Fiona Snyckers is outrageously opinionated for a novelist-housewife. She is the author of the Trinity series of novels, and hopes to continue getting paid to make stuff up.
Posted inLifestyle
Policing women’s erotic choices
Sex sells. This is not breaking news. From medieval monks doodling erotic drawings in the margins of their illuminated manuscripts to naughty Victorians printing salacious postcards, the urge to celebrate sex in art and literature is nothing new. It is also not new for women to want a slice of the erotic market for themselves. […]
Posted inLifestyle
Putting our fiction on the map
South Africa has long had a fine international reputation for literary fiction. Nadine Gordimer and JM Coetzee have both won the Nobel Prize for literature. Coetzee has won the Booker Prize twice. Andre Brink has won a slew of international awards. And those are just the names that come immediately to mind. What we have […]
Posted inGeneral
Five SA books that should have won literary awards
In 2011 the literary awards season gave rise to hopes that the establishment was finally starting to recognise some of our younger and more innovative writers. Cynthia Jele’s Happiness is a 4-Letter Word and Sifiso Mzobe’s Young Blood both enjoyed outstanding critical success, raking in a bouquet of wins between them. This year the winners […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle
Are paper books the horse and carriage of the 21st century?
There has been a lot of hand-wringing and soul-searching in the book world about the challenges posed by e-books. There is also the separate, but related, matter of the massive, loss-leader discounting that book-store chains practise routinely. Cheap books and e-books are apparently threatening civilisation as we know it. They are certainly causing the demise […]
Posted inGeneral
Rape is not a slogan on a T-shirt
When I was a student at Rhodes University I belonged to the Women’s Movement, an organisation that was intended to advance the rights of women students on campus and generally spread the feminist agenda. We were supposed to campaign for things like improved security for women on campus, and to protest against dimwitted and archaic […]
Posted inGeneral
Equating abortion with infanticide is a red herring
The abortion debate was rocked by a recent article by Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva in the Journal of Medical Ethics. It argued that infanticide should be permitted by law for the same reason that abortion is permitted, which is to say that a foetus and a newborn baby are not human persons with rights. Giubilini and Minerva argue […]
Posted inGeneral
Regulation of the porn industry is not a free speech issue
Late last year, South Africa’s journalists and assorted media types decked themselves out in black to protest the Protection of State Information Bill. Shortly thereafter the news sites started buzzing with proposals to introduce a porn channel to our TV sets. And very shortly after that, various organisations threatened to boycott the channels concerned and […]
Posted inGeneral
Do myths about African sexuality hurt the fight against Aids?
Stop me if you’ve heard this one. Q: How many sizes do penises come in? A: Five — “small”, “medium”, “large”, “extra-large”, and “does that come in white?” African men have been the subject of European myth-making since the very earliest days of contact between the two continents. One of the hardiest and most enduring […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Why Black Tuesday was more important than world peace
On Tuesday November 22 people all over South Africa wore black clothes to mark their displeasure at the Protection of Information Bill that was due to be voted on in the National Assembly. The so-called Black Tuesday initiative seems to have been the brainchild of Yusuf Abramjee and Primedia. It was supported by a large […]
Posted inLifestyle
Supermodels are normal too…aren’t they?
Marie Claire SA had an interesting idea for their November issue. They decided to call it the “Love Your Body” issue and invite six major South African ad agencies to come up with campaigns to encourage ordinary women to love the bodies they’ve got. I have yet to see the images they produced, but by […]
Posted inLifestyle, Tech
Do you let your children talk to strangers online?
Sometime around the age of six (or even earlier, if there are older siblings involved) children stop nagging for Hot Wheels and Bratz Dolls and start nagging for a Club Penguin or Moshi Monsters account. The reasons they give for this are as follows: 1) EVERYONE else at school has a Moshi Monsters / Club […]