The Independent

Shaun Johnson: 'The making into a saint of human beings is very dangerous'

09 February 2010 12:59 PM

The subject was, unsurprisingly, Nelson Mandela and what has been a widespread deification of the great man's lifelong achievements.

Rachel Zadok: 'I was so angry at journalists and the media'

21 January 2010 01:08 PM

She says she still feels bruised by the whole affair. Publishing your first novel and finding it short listed for the Whitbread First Novel Award ought to have been an experience to cherish for Rachel Zadok.

Precious McKenzie: 'I thought, no way apartheid would end'

07 January 2010 02:28 PM

In one sense, at 4ft 9ins, there isn't a lot of Precious McKenzie. But it's a case of the old saying – there is more than meets the eye.

Philip Le Roux: 'I became disillusioned with commercial forestry'

14 December 2009 04:32 PM

Cape Town is not exactly short of decent views. But the vista from Philip Le Roux's office window is breathtaking. Laid out before him are the sumptuous gardens of Kirstenbosch and the mountains behind as a backdrop, as if in a painting.

Pam Golding: 'I have never felt that I wasn't one of the boys'

09 December 2009 12:03 PM

She glides serenely into the room, with the grace and elegance of a swan. But like the swan, you do not see the non-stop motion of the legs, propelling Pam Golding here, there, everywhere...

Sherylle Calder: 'When in South Africa we were isolated'

03 December 2009 02:37 PM

Imagine the fantasy of being the most successful sports person in the world.

Mike Miller: 'The biggest problem facing South Africa is the attempt at Africanisation'

03 September 2009 02:43 PM

The fund of goodwill and optimism for South Africa is felt right across the world.

Michael Lutzeyer: 'The benefits from the World Cup will last for decades'

26 August 2009 05:56 PM

It started with a simple camping trip to the Cape's Gansbaai region, back in 1991. Heiner Lutzeyer and his son Michael just wanted a few simple days resting and relaxing close to nature...

Melvyn Wallis-Brown: 'I'm horrified by the pain I inflicted on those fellows'

19 August 2009 12:32 PM

He lives in a Cape Town cottage built for officers before the Boer War. Perhaps not surprising then, that Melvyn Wallis-Brown revels in the subject of history, not least how it has underpinned the structure of his beloved Bishops school.

Margot Janse: 'Mandela still had that aura'

13 August 2009 12:24 PM

The important guests had arrived, 60 of them were in the restaurant. In the kitchen of 'Le Quartier Francais' at Franschoek, you could cut the tension, like a knife through butter.

Luvo Ntezo: 'I have achieved some things but... I would rather be better than the best'

04 August 2009 11:46 AM

Shootings, robberies, assaults: damaging levels of long term unemployment. Young people without jobs and with little hope...

Lungi Sisulu: 'It was pointless fighting and hating'

28 July 2009 12:58 PM

They came at three in the morning, their regular calling time. He still remembers the fear of a 5 year-old boy, awoken in the dark by the shouts, the barking of police dogs and the threats. "They would come barging in turning the house and our beds upside down, searching, always searching."

Louis Mzomba: 'The Government has to do something to make sure that when we teach these kids, proper learning can take place'

21 July 2009 03:45 PM

Louis Mzomba is a schoolteacher in South Africa. He’s a man in love with his job and his country but sometimes they make him cry. Take the case of Andile.

John Pilger: 'I have watched the political ground shift beneath my feet'

14 July 2009 02:58 PM

He has pursued almost a crusade, a missionary like zeal against the Western world, its inadequacies and corruptions, for almost 40 years. Few politicians of recent times have escaped the withering criticisms, the icy blast of his rhetoric. He once disparagingly called South African former Finance Minister Trevor Manuel "a long haired biker of the 1980s".