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Andrew Buckland, puppeteer Craig Leo, Markus Schabbing, Michael K and Carlo Daniels in Life & Times of Michael K at the Market in Joburg

50 FLIPPEN BRILLIANT SOUTH AFRICANS

Puppets, prose and perseverance: JM Coetzee’s Life & Times of Michael K comes to life

The author’s classic is reimagined through puppetry in a powerful stage adaptation

Lesego Chepape

Formidable: JM Coetzee is the winner of numerous awards, including the 2003 Nobel prize for literature.
(Micheline Pelletier/Corbis via Getty Images)

AMAZWI SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM OF LITERATURE

JM Coetzee: A fine mind, a formidable intellect

Behind JM Coetzee, the writer lauded for his ‘wonderfully brave, bold mind’ , is John Coetzee, the quiet man

Angelo Fick

Generations: Keoraptse Kgositsile, Phillipa Yaa de Villiers and James Matthews are some of South Africa’s literary torch bearers. (Supplied)

The pitfalls of artistic canons

Is there sufficient rigour to update the existing literary canon and infuse it with new voices that will themselves become canons in decades to come?

Nthikeng Mohlele