LIFESTYLE - The African Mirror

Jul

08

2020

Film Review | Cook Off

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

PERCY ZVOMUYA On 1 June 2020, Cook Off, a Zimbabwean-made feature film, had its debut on Netflix, the first time a picture from the country was showcased on the streaming platform. The date is a significant one for Tomas Lutuli Brickhill, the film’s director and scriptwriter. “That had some meaning,” he told New Frame in an interview on Zoom. On 1 June 2015, exactly five years before Cook Off’s premiere, the iconic venue Book Café, founded by his father Paul, shut down. By the time Book Café closed, it had become one of Zimbabwe’s important cultural institutions. It was at once a meeting place,…

Jul

05

2020

By The African Mirror

Zozi celebrates pride month

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT, LGBTQIA+

STAFF REPORTER TO MARK the end of pride month, a few popular personalities took the time on social media to hold open discussions regarding equality and respect for members who are not cis-heterosexual but are gender-conforming or non-binary. This discussions has been spurred on by the battle for legalising same-sex relationships within the African continent where it is still banned and punishable with jail time in a number of countries. Some of those personalities included Miss Universe’s Zozibini Tunzi, who has been using the pageant organisation’s Instagram profle to host conversations regarding the efforts for the LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,Trangender,…

Apr

14

2022

By The African Mirror

Reflecting on South African novelist K. Sello Duiker’s art of madness and social justice

LITERATURE

THE South African novelist K. Sello Duiker would have turned 48 on 13 April 2022. Since 2005, when he took his own life at the age of 30, his importance to the body of African literature has become even more evident. His works have been republished within and outside South Africa and continue to be the subject of both academic and social media discussions. Testament to his legacy, the South African Literary Awards gives a prize in his name every year to writers under 40. Author FEMI EROMOSELE, Lecturer, University of the Witwatersrand Duiker is considered a key voice in…

Apr

14

2022

By The African Mirror

A street art mural in Zimbabwe exposes a divided society

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

THE Shona and the Ndebele are Zimbabwe’s two most dominant ethnic groups. Explaining the ever-present tension between them, historian Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni points to the abuse of the post-colonial state by the ruling Shona-dominated government “in its drive to destroy Ndebele particularism”. He explains, “This sets in motion the current Matabeleland politics of alienation, resentment and grievance.” This continued marginalisation of Matabeleland (a region in southwestern Zimbabwe inhabited mainly by the Ndebele people) by the ZANU-PF-led government has rendered Zimbabwe so fragile a nation that even a street mural can expose its disunity. Author BARNABAS TICHA MUVHUTI, Ph.D. in Art…

Apr

12

2022

By The African Mirror

The 100-year-old story of South Africa’s first history book in the isiZulu language

LITERATURE

THIS year marks the centenary of the publication in 1922 of Abantu Abamnyama Lapa Bavela Ngakona (The Black People and Whence They Came), the first book-length history of black people written in isiZulu. Part of the Nguni language group, there are an estimated 12 million isiZulu speakers in South Africa. Its author was Magema Fuze, now seen as a major figure in the body of writings produced in African languages in South Africa, but one who remains too little known outside narrow scholarly circles. Author HLONIPHA MOKOENA, Associate Professor at the Wits Institute for Social & Economic Research, University of…

Apr

09

2022

By The African Mirror

Will Smith banned from attending Oscars for 10 years after slap

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

LISA RICHWINE HOLLYWOOD'S film academy banned Will Smith from attending the Oscars for 10 years after the best actor winner slapped presenter Chris Rock on stage at the Academy Awards ceremony 12 days ago. The board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences took the action at a meeting held one week after Smith pre-emptively resigned from the group over his outburst at the live, televised event. "The 94th Oscars were meant to be a celebration of the many individuals in our community who did incredible work this past year," academy President David Rubin and Chief…

Apr

16

2022

By The African Mirror

Grammy star Black Coffee: winning the world, losing at home

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

I first saw Nkosinathi Maphumulo aka Black Coffee perform at Amaros Night Club in Pretoria, South Africa during the late 2000s. Dressed in a casual T-shirt, no one would have guessed he was destined for global glory. Beneath strobe lights, bathed in throbbing house music, clashing voices and perspiration, he could have been just like any other struggling deejay on the make. But he seemed impervious to the spectral faces, shapes and vapours swirling across the ceiling, walls and floors. In the middle of the Pretoria club, Black Coffee manned his throne in a scene where everything hangs in the…

Mar

02

2021

By The African Mirror

How apartheid denied a Black golf champ

LITERATURE

BARRY COHEN SEWSUNKER “Papwa” Sewgolum began playing golf with a syringa stick but went on to win the Dutch Open and several South African tournaments before the apartheid government banned him. Papwa, the early days Papwa Sewgolum’s parents had come to South Africa in 1860 along with many other indentured Indians from North India via Calcutta to work in the sugarcane plantations on the Natal North Coast. They hoped to make a new life in the land of milk and honey, and prosper, and to get away from their grinding poverty and punishing colonial taxes (which would eventually lead to…

Mar

04

2021

By The African Mirror

Botswana’s Kearoma sets her sights on fashion with Che’ri

BEAUTY AND FASHION

AFRICAN MIRROR REPORTER BOTSWANA jazz songbird Kearoma Rantao has made her move into the fashion world. Rantao sat down with The African Mirror on her new venture while managing her successful career during the coronavirus pandemic. She told us that her country going into lockdown along with other Southern African countries is what inspired her to start moving with her new brand Che’ri. “Covid-19 basically stopped all music performances because our lockdown didn’t allow for social gatherings at live performances, so I had to come up with another stream of income, and decided to push up my dream of starting…

Mar

02

2021

By The African Mirror

Tsitsi Dangarembga’s art and activism

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

BARBARA BOSWELL THE artist and activist elaborates on her work and the intricate, necessary relationship between her artistic production and political action in Zimbabwe. The last week of July 2020 was one of extreme paradoxes for Tsitsi Dangarembga. Three days after her novel This Mournable Body was shortlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize, the Zimbabwean writer, playwright and filmmaker found herself in prison after her arrest in Harare. Dangarembga, part of a two-women protest, was standing next to a highway, silently holding a placard protesting against state corruption and the imprisonment of journalist Hopewell Chin’ono. Dangarembga and her friend, Julie Barnes, were…