Forgotten your password?
Enter your username or email address and we'll send you reset instructions
The new edition of Wordsetc – on soccer and literature – is coming out tomorrow. It’s on soccer and literature. It’ll be on sale for the first time at the Jozi Book Fair in Museum Africa, Newtown, this weekend (Aug 7, 8 & 9). If you a subscriber, it’ll hit your mailbox very, very soon.
If you would like to subscribe mail us on subscriptions@wordsetc.co.za.
Thanks for your constant support.
Phakama
“Coovadia’s work hardly shies away from including troubling contemporary issues, including the inevitable twinning of race and political life in South Africa (and the myriad hues in which this link appears); the ambiguous position of Indians living outside of the Subcontinent – their ability to fit between the seams of discord, as well as irritate all sides of a given conflict; and the necessary criminal elements that help forge the bonds within such in-between societies, ensure survival for the time being, and foment plans of escape when necessary.” – M. Neelika Jayawardane
This sixth edition of Wordsetc, South Africa’s foremost literary journal, is out. Hot on the heels of a fantastic edition that looked at the iconic Nadine Gordimer, the latest edition continues to showcase the best of South African literature. It leads with novelist Imraan Coovadia, a young writer on a mission. He also teaches creative writing at the English Department at the University of Cape Town. He has just written his third book, High Low In-between. We explore what makes him tick as a writer, the themes he explores, his literary influences and even the music he listens to.
The rest of the contents are also sizzling.
Contents at a glance
The main profile is on novelist Imraan Coovadia, author of the recently published High Low In-between. We explore his work, the ambiguities that he tackles about Indians in the country.
In the Personal Notes section, activist Zachie Achmat relives the days of his imprisonment at the age of 15 for political activism (“My Father’s Touch”). He has bittersweet memories of his father. A touching read.
Over the years advertising icon Alistair King of King James Advertising has amassed a special collection of rare books. In an eloquent and humorous essay he tells why he frequents second-hand bookstores in search of that rare book (“The Collector”).
Award-winning journalist Kevin Bloom tells us about motivation behind writing Ways of Staying, a book that takes an unflinching view at the state of the South Africa. Some may describe the book as bleak, but deep down, Kevin makes a case of being a realist (“The Realist”).
Literary critic and writer Karina Magdalena Szczurek profiles seven of our top writers in South Africa. She specifically looks at how these writers hang on to their full-time jobs and still manage to write creatively (“Writers’ other lives”). A very illuminating feature.
In the Appraisal section, researcher and academic Joy Watson offers a rich narrative about the legacy of Ruth First as a writer and champion of social change (“Her words”).
For the past two years Victor Dlamini has been taking gorgeous photography of some of our remarkable artists, including writers. Across a spread of six pages, he shows readers his awesome work (“Capturing creative spirits”).
In the How I Write section, acclaimed novelist Angelina Sithebe details how the writing business happens for her.
Lindiwe Nkutha’s wonderful play called Woman In Transit is captivating in telling of a young woman from the countryside who comes to Johannesburg in the 1950s to find a city full of degradation, and her ultimate defiant stand against injustice. We publish an extract of the play.
In our new Poetry section, Seni Seneviratne, an acclaimed poet and performance artist from Britain, tells us about the central role poetry plays in her life.
In our Bookshelf Series, Absa’s marketing head Happy Ntshingila talks about the writing of his new book Black Jerusalem in which he reminisces about the heady days of crafting winning advertising pitches in his earlier life as a founding partner at Herdbouys advertising, the first black-owned advertising agency in the country.
There’s all this and more – literary travel, short story, book reviews, a restaurant review and listings pages. As with previous five editions, this issue is jam-packed. It will satisfy literature lovers and those keen to know more about the state of South African literature at the moment.
For an interview with publishing editor Phakama Mbonambi, or to excerpt any of the stories from Wordsetc, please contact him on 083 287 1955 or Flamencomail@gmail.com.
See website at www.wordsetc.co.za or Facebook group called Wordsetc – A South African Literary Journal.
Outlets
Wordsetc is available at bookshops (Exclusive Books, CNA and many independent bookstores such as Boekehuis, Kalk Bay Books, Clarke’s Bookstore, Protea Books and The Book Lounge) and various alternative distribution points such as DVD Gurus, Absolutely Fabulous DVD Nouveau (Morningside), Service Station Café and Wild Olive Food Store (Greenside) and Michael Stevenson Gallery (Cape Town).
Price
The journal retails for R49.95. Subscription is R170 for four editions. Back copies are available. Just write to Flamencomail@gmail.com.
Book details
To commemorate Barack Obama’s inauguration today, Wordsetc brings you this piece from our latest edition by Barbara Nussbaum.
*
A Psalm for Obama
Let us Savour today
The seed of all who dream
Some seed bore fruit
In the hands of one man
A fruit, So magnificent
That the world woke up
And celebrated
May we be in awe
Of this new ocean of change
So pure in being
So wide in breadth
So divine intent
That millions of us
Witness the seas of our being
Flowing in waves
Of togetherness
Bringing tears of relief in some
Songs of joy in others
And hope for humanity’s oneness
In love
- Dedicated to Obama and to all who dream, November 6, 2008, Johannesburg
I wrote this psalm the day on November 6, a day after Barack Obama was elected US President. The previous day, Obama had delivered an unforgettable acceptance speech. I had been stunned and moved by a sacred moment in time. It was a day where history felt blessed. Like billions of people around the world, I shared a contagious hope for a different future.
And then, part of me felt a deep and sober sadness. What has taken us so long as a world to wake up? I was born to Jewish parents in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. My father and grandparents had fled the Holocaust in Germany. We had lost many relatives to the Holocaust, so witnessing any ignorance in the world about race, religion, ethnicity and colour has continued to be a concern. Watching the tears rolling down Jesse Jackson’s face and Oprah’s face, I cried too. Mine were tears of catharsis. I was crying for a world, which had taken too long, to care. Paradoxically, in a moment that defined the possibility for collective transformation, I finally felt free to acknowledge a profound sadness and disappointment. How long we have taken as a world to make a collective choice for change.
Finally in Obama, we have a leader with a magnificent ability to communicate across class, across race, across nations. He touches so many of us who yearn for the power of our connection as human beings.
By the next day, I had slept peacefully and began to write the psalm, starting to feel the joy and the abundant blessings of Obama’s election. In the writing, I felt the gratitude for all the dreamers and visionaries I have met in my life. I realised that many of us hope and dream and I wanted to acknowledge all who dream and all who are bold enough to dare to hope audaciously.
That day, I saw the possibility of hope in the millions of faces on the television screen. For in Obama, the world has a leader whose awareness of our interconnectedness combines with a powerful stand for hope and for change. Obama’s ability to articulate the ways in which we are intertwined as human beings speaks to a zeitgeist, a moment in time, when the world is hungry for his message. Our choices and decisions, small and large, individually and collectively, affect each other continuously and have repercussions globally as we discover how interlinked we are in our communities, in our businesses, in our countries and in our world. Obama speaks to this so brilliantly and inspires us. This moment felt sacred for the world and sacred in my own life’s journey. When I hear Obama speak, I recognise an ubuntu exemplar. These are people I watch for, people who give my own life meaning and inspiration.
Of the various definitions of ubuntu, I like the one given by a Congolese student Raiz Boneza, who is currently engaged in peace studies in Norway. He writes, “I am because you are, I became because you became; we are human beings through the eyes of other human beings; my dignity is your dignity. That is what ubuntu teaches us.”
To give some context and background, I have had the privilege of living between the US and South Africa during the past sixteen years. Frightened after being mugged in Joburg in 2000, I bolted to the US, just in time to witness the horror of George W Bush stealing that election. Seeing images of collective disappointment on the television hurt me. I witnessed the gaping chasm in a nation divided, puzzled and angry. I was shocked and in the noise of my own outrage, noticed the beginning of a profound inner dialogue. It went something like this.
How could American politics be different if ubuntu was part of the equation? How could the world be, if ubuntu was widely practised? What would American capitalism look like if sprinkled with African ubuntu? All these questions were alive for me. In the sweet intensity of those moment, life felt large and the questions irresistible! These have stayed with me, like a slow insistent drum beat that needed to be heard.
My own pathway to ubuntu emerged in unexpected ways. Through research for a thesis, on African dance, I began to understand something about the power of the social processes and the genius of the emotional intelligence that lives in African culture. The research proved to be an unusual passport into an unexpected forum in 1995 – Wits Business School’s South African Management Project. The intention of the project was to acknowledge how Eurocentric our corporate culture was in South Africa and to explore how and why African culture might be better understood and more effectively accommodated in the business setting. We started to document how and why African culture was relevant to the work place.
I met some stellar personalities who became my mentors and teachers. Through their eyes, I began discover the valuable heritage of African culture. Through their wisdom, I learned about the gold that lies deep within the soul of this country. And ubuntu stayed with me, even thousands of miles away in America.
So returning to that unfortunate November 2000, when I watched a different President-elect assume “glory” on a television screen, the questions evoked in the aftermath of that election stayed with me. I finally settled on taking up the challenge of writing about ubuntu for Americans. This seemed a crazy idea, but I felt deeply moved and started writing. The events of September 11 2001 fuelled my motivation to write even more. By the end of 2002 I had completed an eight thousand-word article on ubuntu. It was published by the World Business Academy (www.worldbusiness.org), a cutting edge think tank, based in California, where I was then living.
I cried for several days after the acceptance of the article. Not only because of the awe of personal achievement but because of the feedback of Rinaldo Brutoco, founder and president of the Academy about the importance of ubuntu for the world. Brutoco, a visionary and a futurist is surrounded by fellows who are thought leaders. For Brutoco, ubuntu captured where we need to go as a planet. Then (and now) he believes that the only conscious choice we have as a planet is to acknowledge our interconnectedness, and to know that we are only people through other people, collectively responsible for creating a world economy that works for all.
The insight I gained from Brutoco is that Africa’s gift to the world is ubuntu. Sadly we don’t value ubuntu much or recognise the many ways that this concept has influenced our history. In our obsession with the politics of the day, we forget how magnificent our own transformation process has been. We don’t recognise that we are leaders in the art of dialogue that so often holds the possibility for collective transformation. This is a gift we can share if we choose to see it for ourselves.
I continue dreaming and writing about ubuntu in the midst of cynicism about the word, especially in South Africa where it is overused, misunderstood and misinterpreted. Since 2006 I have been watching out for ubuntu exemplars and collecting their stories. And since the beginning of this year, I have been excitedly following Obama, noticing his language of we – of connection. His speeches reveal a remarkable gift of articulating the bonds that connect us as human beings. He sews the golden thread of our shared humanity in his careful choice of words and images. At the end of his influential speech on race earlier this year, Obama described the mutual recognition between Ashley, a young white girl who had been eating mustard and relish sandwiches for a year, and an old black man. Asked why he was at the meeting, the black man said he was at the meeting because of Ashley. In that speech, and that story, I recognised that in Obama we have an ubuntu exemplar writ large. Really large!
Obama inspires those of us who dream to dream more, to dream with hope. He, like our beloved Madiba, inspires us to be bold and to believe in a more humane world; a world in which we value each other, care about each other, respect each other and love each other. I wrote the psalm as a global citizen with the heart of a daughter of Africa. Inspired by the oceans of change I see, I choose hope. Yes hope, even during a time when too few political leaders glow with the alchemy and magic of Madiba or Obama, in our country and in our world.
I believe that part of Obama’s gift derives, not only from his connection to the spirit of Africa, but also because of his ability to feel compassion for all people. In the epilogue of his memoir Dreams From My Father, we sense Obama’s recognition in the beautiful universality of our common humanity. He writes: “I hear the spirit of…..Jefferson and Lincoln; the struggles of Martin and Malcolm and unheralded marchers…….I hear the voices of Japanese families interned behind barbed wire; young Russian Jews cutting patterns in the Lower East side sweat shop; dust bowl farmers loading up their trucks with the remains of their shattered lives……I hear all of these voices clamouring for recognition, all of them asking the very same questions that have come to shape my life….. What is our community and how might that community be reconciled with our freedom? How to transform mere power into justice, mere sentiment into love?”
My greatest hope is that we not only value what Obama is bringing to America and the world, but that while acknowledging his greatness, we recognise our own greatness as South Africans and the gift of ubuntu we can bring to the world.
- Barbara Nussbaum
Golden Axe Casino Review
Since its launch, Golden Axe Casino has made a solid track record. The site has consistently improved its game selection and promotional offers. You can find a matched deposit welcome bonus, bingo, blackjack, and slots here. We also discuss some of the features of Golden Axe Casino’s welcome bonus and a matched deposit bonus.
Golden Axe Casino offers bingo
Golden Axe Casino is a great place to play bingo, and there are several great ways to win prizes. One of the best ways to win is to complete a full house. This means that you have to match all the numbers on your bingo card. Another way to win prizes is to get a Free Bingo Bonus. The site also offers jackpot bingo rooms. The games are easy to find and play, with a simple interface that makes them easy to use.
New players can claim a free bonus at Golden Axe Casino when they register. The only catch is that they have to verify their identity by using their country code and mobile number. There is a maximum bonus of PS100 available for new players. However, Golden Axe Casino is also offering a 200% match bonus on your first deposit. However, you cannot claim more than one no deposit bonus at a time. This offer can be a good option for bingo players who do not want to spend money on their first deposits.
You can play Golden Axe Casino’s bingo games from your computer or mobile device. The site features 90-ball bingo, which is the most popular variation of the game. The bingo room has many chat rooms, so there’s never a dull moment when you’re playing this game.
Golden Axe Casino offers slots
Golden Axe Casino offers slots players a lot of options. In addition to a massive collection of online games, Golden Axe Casino also features a loyalty program, where you can accumulate points to receive free spins and bonuses. This is especially useful if you are a regular player of the casino. You can also sign up for a VIP program, which gives you exclusive access to exclusive bonuses.
Golden Axe Casino offers plenty of payment options, from debit and credit cards to e-wallets. Most deposit methods are instant, making the casino easy to use and safe to use. There are also mobile payment methods available. There are no minimum deposit amounts, and Golden Axe Casino accepts both UK and international payments.
A unique promotion is Golden Axe Casino’s welcome bonus, which welcomes new players with free play bonus up to PS10. To claim this welcome bonus, you need to register for an account with Golden Axe Casino. Once you register and verify your account, you will receive the bonus. The bonus is subject to 20x wagering, and the bonus will expire seven days after you receive it.
Golden Axe Casino uses proprietary software and develops all of its games in-house. These games are designed to run well on any device, including mobile phones and tablets. You will also find the same intuitive design and user interface no matter what device you use.
Golden Axe Casino offers a matched deposit welcome bonus
A matched deposit welcome bonus is a great way to get started at a new casino, and Golden Axe Casino has one to offer you. The casino is offering up to PS5 in free bonus credits when you sign up for an account. These bonus credits can be used on any of the casino’s games. You can also take advantage of a Refer a Friend scheme where you can refer a friend and receive 50% of their deposit as bonus credits.
Another great thing about Golden Axe Casino is its selection of exclusive games, which are not available anywhere else. You can play slots with progressive jackpots that can reach hundreds of thousands of pounds, and a small percentage of each bet goes toward the jackpot. You can view the jackpot value from the lobby. Unlike many online casinos, Golden Axe Casino does not have a live casino, but it does offer computer versions of classic table games such as blackjack, roulette, and baccarat.
The bonus can be used immediately and doesn’t have a wagering requirement, which makes it perfect for new players. You don’t even have to use your Golden Axe Casino promo code to avail this offer. The casino also accepts multiple payment solutions, including credit cards and PayPal.
Golden Axe Casino offers loyalty points
The Golden Axe Casino has a great loyalty scheme which involves points that can be redeemed for gifts. Each month, the site has a selected game that will earn you points. Most bonuses come with x20 wagering requirements. In addition to bonus cash, players can earn loyalty points that can be redeemed for various gifts.
To start earning loyalty points, players can play the bingo games at Golden Axe Casino. Each time a friend joins the site, the Golden Axe Casino will give you PS5. You can use the points to win prizes and get free gifts. You can also participate in prize draws every week and win some extra money or gadgets.
The Golden Axe Casino offers 24/7 customer support via phone, email or live chat. It also has a comprehensive FAQ section. The casino has more than 1 million registered users in the UK. It has excellent mobile slots and has a great variety of bonuses and promotions. It is also safe and secure, similar to its big sister sites.
The Golden Axe Casino has a good range of games that are exclusive to the Golden Axe Casino platform. Slots and other casino games contribute 100% while bingo games contribute up to 500% of points. To play the games at Golden Axe Casino, you will need to register for an account. You will need to choose your country of residence, provide a phone number, and create a username and a strong password.
Golden Axe Casino offers a Payday bonus
The Golden Axe Casino has a number of regular promotions and offers. These can include deposit matches and free spins. In addition, most of these bonuses can be withdrawn as cash. The casino has been around since 2008 and is owned and operated by Touch Gaming Limited, a UK-based gaming company. It uses its own proprietary software and offers a number of games such as roulette, blackjack, and bingo.
Players can also take advantage of the Refer-A-Friend bonus at Golden Axe Casino. This bonus will give them PS5 for referring a friend and 50% of their first deposit. However, if they make a withdrawal before playing through the bonus amount, they will not receive the bonus.
Unlike some other online casinos, Golden Axe Casino allows deposit and withdrawal of money through a variety of methods. Deposits can be made via PayPal, bank transfer, or credit or debit card. Withdrawals are processed in three to four days. However, customers who do not want to make a deposit will need to wait 10 to 12 working days before they can withdraw their funds. Golden Axe Casino has an excellent customer support service and an FAQ section.
Another unique feature of Golden Axe Casino is its mobile bingo app. This is available for iOS and Android devices. The mobile app is free to download, and is a great option for players who prefer a mobile gaming experience. Intouch Games developed the app and it supports 99.9% of smartphones.
First published 10 June 08.
The second edition of Wordsetc is out and the site has been updated. Yes, both events took a while. They also took all our energy. Apologies for those who got impatient. We are new in this. We’re learning the terrain – fast. We endevour to keep getting better and doing things a littler quicker.
We thank those who have supported us. They have done so because they share our vision of promoting African literature and great writing from elsewhere in the world.
Wordsetc’s premise is that literature plays a crucial role in society. Literature can make us aspire to be what we are not. It also helps highlight the commonality of human condition. As I write this, thousands of fellow Africans are in makeshift encampments in Johannesburg, having fled their homes due to senseless xenophobic attacks that have seen Africans hacking other Africans to death on baseless grounds. How can this happen now? Have we only recently, as a country, resolved that such ethnic violence will never again plague us? Our only hope is that literature — and all of the arts — can help us to transcend our lowly human conditions, our base predijuces and emotions. Perhaps by reading each other’s stories, by listening to each other’s music, by seeing each other’s stories told through painting and photographs, we can learn to appreciate our commonality as human beings, we can learn to stop dwelling on differences. Perhaps, through the arts, we can cleanse our poisoned souls. Elsewhere on this site, the South African writer Zukiswa Wanner clearly articulates her anger over the senseless attacks. Justifiable anger, to be sure.
(more…)
