By Mmathabo Maebela Imagine sitting in a circle of like-minded reading enthusiasts on a cool Saturday morning. Sitting on a soft blanket or the plush green grass with a book in your hands. No nametags, no pressure, just your book, your coffee or water, and an hour of shared silence. It sounds simple, but it’s a quiet kind of magic that is surprisingly moving. A new chapter begins Last Saturday morning offered just that when a group of book lovers got together at the Botanical Gardens for the launch of Makhanda’s first-ever Silent Book Club. The idea is simple: bring your…
Author: Mmathabo Maebela
Read More
Profile: Nyakallo Maleke, 2025 Standard Bank Young Artist for Visual Art By Mmathabo Maebela and Relebohile Mohapi A day in this artist’s life consists of scouring her surroundings for materials to add to her art. It involves the rustling of wax paper and the sight of thread moving from loop to loop. A pencil in her hand signifies the climax of her day. Named the 2025 Standard Bank Young Artist for Visual Art, Nyakallo Maleke’s art is a practice of home, memory, and subtle resistance. A new drawing for her means a clean slate, an opportunity to tell a new…
By Mmathabo Maebela When Nick Mulgrew founded uHlanga Press in 2014, he did not fathom that it would publish 40 poetry books in its first 10 years. This milestone was marked last month with an open online series of conversations with authors. Recently, Rhodes University graduate Mulgrew talked to Grocott’s Mail about publishing poetry in South Africa. Let’s start at the beginning. How did you get into the publishing industry? I was very fortunate. Someone who was in my Honours class sent me an opportunity for an internship. What we did was try to get photocopy shops in Makhanda to be…
By Mmathabo Maebela Did the #FeesMustFall movement actually transform gender realities or was that just a box that got ticked? Research by Asiphe Mxalisa, a lecturer at the Centre for Postgraduate Studies, explored intersectionality in the experiences of students navigating higher education spaces in South Africa after the #FeesMustFall movement amid the chaos of the Covid-19 pandemic. Her findings paint a sobering image of ever-present adversities faced by many black female and queer students at South African universities. At a bold lunchtime seminar hosted last Friday by the RU Department of Politics and International Studies and chaired by honours candidate…
By Mmathabo Maebela This morning, the room holds its silence gently. Not the kind of silence that signals that the room is not as full as it would usually be on a cold day. But one that allows you to be one with your thoughts. This silence is broken by the sound of the coffee machine, a clink of glasses, or a sigh of steam as the barista rinses the transparent glasses that carry the warm beverage that keeps you company. It is broken by the soft shuffle of shoes as coffee patriots cross the floor. It is engulfed in…
By Mmathabo Maebela, Relebohile Mohapi, Thubelihle Mathonsi As we settled into the Amazwi amphitheatre, the chatter from audience and performers filled the autumn air. Deep baritone hums wafted through the crowds, setting the stage for what was to come. A few moments later, MC Adam Levin welcomed the audience to the first poetry showcase hosted at Amazwi Museum in collaboration with the South African Poetry Projects (ZAPP), Poetry NonScenes, and the Rhodes University Department of Literary Studies in English. This showcase marked the end of a two-day poetry workshop aimed at encouraging young writers to tell their stories through their poetry. The…
By Mmathabo Maebela and Relebohile Mohapi There were no page numbers, no poem titles, just brief pauses as Kobus Moolman’s steady voice carried the audience through the reading of his latest collection of poetry, Fall Risk. What last week’s event bore witness to was not a performance but an embodiment of the pain, beauty, and fragility of the human body. In South African literature, writing the body has long been an uncomfortable yet fertile terrain used to reflect the weight of history. It has emerged as the witness of scars caused by apartheid and post-apartheid realities and their nuances of…
By Mmathabo Maebela (Iyooo, we’ve been walking) I seldom find myself on this side of Grahamstown. Unfamiliar with all the possible shortcuts, my friend and I opt for the long route that leads us to a corner opposite Shoprite. We turn to Chapel Street, leaving all the familiar behind us and stepping into a different world. Chapel Street hums with movement as people walk to and from the Shoprite complex, now carrying two or three yellow plastic bags that whisper, “This grocery should last us till the next payday,” On the left, there are fruit and vegetable stores, a red…
By Mmathabo Maebela (Can this umbrella close already) As the door swings open to announce our arrival, my friend and I are greeted by a gust of warm air. The damp scent of rain drifts from our jackets into the air, intensifying the restaurant’s petrichor. The atmosphere is humid with laughter and the low hum of clinking glasses in every corner of the room. A lady in a black Pothole & Donkey uniform walks towards us with a pen and paper, “Good evening, ladies, table for two?” (Aghhh maan, the booths are full). Couples and groups sit tightly in the…
By Mmathabo Maebela As I rush to join the wave of people walking towards the complex, my phone rings. Absentmindedly, I fish it out of my backpack. (Eish, these focken telemarketers.) Before I could end the call, a brake squeals from a taxi hurtling past. My body jerks back, heart pumping in exasperation. The driver leans out the window, glances at me, and presses against the hooter in irritation. (Yeses, death almost had me.) The wave of people walking in front of me does not stop. Even those who click their tongues in dismay at my silliness. Urgently, they slide…