‘It is 365 years since the first Dutch settlers arrived at the Cape but no more than 180 years since Afrikaner nationalism gained momentum and barely 100 years since Afrikaans was formally recognized as a language.’ John Battersby Yesterday I was at a restaurant, and as I was playing with my 2-year-old nephew in the …

In my early twenties, I saved up money so I could tick off two things on my bucket list: Israel and Masada. I booked my tickets with the Lééf magazine tour group, and in early 2012 I set foot on Israel soil. Initially, I was disappointed by the whole experience. So I never wrote about …

There’s a scene in the 1964 musical film My Fair Lady where Freddie, a young man hopelessly in love with the main character, Eliza Doolittle, visits the street where she lives. She refuses to see him, so he wanders up and down her street. It’s getting dark and the streets are empty, but Freddie is …

It is 1995. Someone asks me what I want to be when I grow up. ‘A writer,’ I say without hesitation. I am six years old and I have yet to learn how to read and write. ‘What do you want to write about?’ the same person asks me. ‘A book,’ I reply. ‘A book …

The relationship between children and their parents can be a complicated thing. Our parents are complicated human beings themselves. We are an extension of them, so that already makes us complicated as soon as we come into this world. We carry their DNA, their personality traits, their physical attributes. We can also end up carrying …