Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian
Dinika Govender

Creator

Dinika Govender

Writer and Entrepreneur.

We highlight the work of those accelerating sustainable living in SA – at a vital moment for the environment

Many memories make history

The lived experience of each generation and every person expands on the official version

Thinking: South African fashion designer Lukhanyo Mdingi not only produces top notch designer clothing but considers how and why he is doing so. Photo: David Harrison
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Mdingi isn’t your hype beast

Three years into a globally appraised luxury fashion business this designer is investing in honesty and environmental integrity

Outside a restaurant in New Orleans. Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images/AFP

Déjà blues in New Orleans

The Big Easy is much like small-town South Africa — charming, with poverty in the back streets

Dark satire: Tanlume Enyatseng’s exhibition explores people living with HIV

Storyteller began his journey on a ‘dark, dark night’

Tanlume Enyatseng is doing what he was born to do: weave words into stories

Elon Musk. (AFP)

Learn to self-care in a selfless way

"What we seem to have adopted is a supremely individualist definition of self."

Desired: Fresh produce is found at a variety of places such as a roadside stall in Gatesville, Cape Town, (above) and at the Mediterranean Fish Market (below) in Johannesburg. Photos: David Harrison and Delwyn Verasamy

Search for ‘good food’ is karma

Just as preparing and eating food binds us, so do visits to markets with fresh, unpackaged products

Reflecting: Susan Sontag’s philosophy on taking photographs inspired Dinika Govender not to whip out her smartphone and snap away during her recent visit to New York City. Photo: Dinika Govender

‘On Photography’ revisited

"Susan Sontag was right about extractive, reductive photos, but her context isn’t mine"

Straight up: The author cares deeply about the planet and her staff but refuses to molly-coddle them. Photo: Issei Kato/Reuters

On companies and scandal

"If we can stay on the right side of the law and keep the books presentable, what’s going on at these big organisations?"

In 2013,  Gaiutra Bahadur published Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture, which was short-listed for the Orwell Prize in 2014.

Coolie Woman and me

In the book, Gaiutra Bahadur traces her great-grandmother’s journey as a 27-year-old woman from Calcutta to Guyana in the British coolie trade.

Mango-red: San Francisco houses, among other tourist attractions, the famous Golden Gate Bridge, but there are other sides to the city. Photo: Robert Galbraith/Reuters

​Walking among unicorns

Facts about San Francisco are hidden; they are gleaned from trying to make sense of being there

A New York minute: Photographers Reatile Moalusi

A lens on a portfolio review

Two South African photographers were chosen to showcase and reflect on their work in New York

In December 2017 Pilato

Exiled Zambian rapper stirs the president’s pot

Pilato was forced to flee Zambia after dropping his latest track titled Koswe Mumpoto (Rat in the pot), which attacked the presidency.

Why change a winning recipe? There is no set recipe for a traditional thali but they are delicious and provide 
a filling meal that can be shared with friends and family. Photos: Russ Rohde/AFP

When tapas tap your wallet dry

It’s cultural appropriation taken a smidge too far when trendy fusion food becomes confusion cuisine that’s an insult to its humble Indian roots

Hugh Masekela: I’m the kind of person who goes on with life. I was one of the smallest benders of the era.

Goodbye Bra Hugh

Hugh Masekela: I’m the kind of person who goes on with life. I was one of the smallest benders of the era.

Who was Bra Willie?

Though he may be cemented in history as a poet first, Keorapetse Kgositsile was both political dissident and artist.

Afro-soul food: The Roving Bantu Kitchen in Brixton

SA’s heartiest holes in the wall

Eating out this festive season needn’t bankrupt you. Here are some of our best cheap, family-run eateries

Waiting for the trifle: Dinika Govender’s family ready for dessert at the Christmas Ever dinner

When pudding is no trifling matter

"And for as long as Koo does not change its canned peaches recipe and raspberry jelly is still pink, the family trifle pudding will stay the same".

Dinika Govender

For Emilly-Rose, who is not old enough to read this

"People do not like to be outed, to feel shamed, even when they have wronged. It is more likely that you will be made to feel even weaker".

Odd? The RAF’s Lindelwa Jabavu approved a R10-million payment to SAP.

Mansplaining and MisoHawni’s “mishap” mishap

A Jo’burg-based restaurant called Misohawni had to change its name and apologise after it was accused of ‘cultural appropriation, racism and misogyny’

‘It’s just the way I write.’

Paul Beatty: Exploring race without limits

Paul Beatty touches on key issues but writes in such a way that he doesn’t have to speak for black people