This is an excerpt from my latest novel, In The Maid’s Room – my third. The book launches next week in Port Elizabeth. There’s a rock at Schoenmakerskop where you can get tubed. On the far side of a rockpool that you can just about wade across if the tide’s […]
This is a statement by Safrea, the Southern African Freelancers’ Association Safrea, the Southern African Freelancers’ Association, has slammed the collapse in freelance editorial rates in South Africa as “threatening to kill journalism”. “The rates being paid for editorial journalism in this country are not enough to sustain a career […]
By Hagen Engler In the fraught contemporary social media environment, it can be intimidating to try to say anything of political relevance. Especially when you know you’re on the wrong side of history, and that your perspective and value system is tainted by your privileged upbringing in a racist, white supremacist system. […]
A tribute to those trusty dens of culinary endeavour that feed the party army of the night. By Hagen Engler [This story first appeared in Obrigado magazine] The late-night stop for coffee and a bite to eat is as much a part of the going-out tradition as the dancing, […]
[This piece first appeared in Journey magazine] Hagen Engler accompanies his father on a nostalgic return to a desert dam in Africa. “Ah, well,” my father shrugs, as he contemplates his greatest work of engineering. The disappointment hangs heavy in the crisp Kalahari air. My dad, Fred, helped build the Gaborone […]
STATE OWNERSHIP OF COPYRIGHT I am initially concerned about the meaning of part (2) of Section 21 of the Act itself, which states: (2) Ownership of any copyright conferred by section 5 shall initially vest in the state or the international organization concerned, and not in the author. This seems to imply […]
I didn’t receive that particular memo, but I believe comedians telling actual jokes went out of fashion some time around 1992. After that, observational humour became the thing. “Did you ever notice…” followed by a series of riffs on relatively funny aspects of everyday life that the comedian has noticed. That’s stand-up […]
By the time Google Maps and the Garmin had finished arguing with each other, we were on the R509 heading west from Joburg. When the sky is more attractive than the countryside, you know you’re on a godforsaken stretch of tarmac, and so it proved. But that’s the highveld in winter. […]
If I can make the bar, the far won’t set me back. Within a reach-around of Dirck, I’m set. I can smell my hone, my own is hell it’s home. Coat outside a schwitz, a beast inside it hits. A Malan mulling on my elbow, what he says is hard to tell though. Well sung, well write […]
[This piece first appeared in True Love magazine.] By Hagen Engler As our young democracy grows into a vibrant, multicultural society, it’s crucial to remain aware of the contribution made by those who came before us. South African street name policy is that only in exceptional cases will a street […]