CHRIS ROPER: Life imitates art
As the November 1 elections loom, two works of fiction offer some perspective on what it means to be South African — and the fault lines that are so cynically exploited by politicians
28 October 2021 - 05:00
Sometimes it’s useful to take a step back, out of the blinding morass of media firecrackers detonating in our information space, and get some perspective about where we are as a country. In fact, not where we are — that is a familiar place of broken political promises and fractured hope — but why we are. How did we get here?
History has done a poor job of explaining that. As Italian writer Roberto Calasso put it in The Unnamable Present (2019), his gnomic musings on the condition of the world, "conspiracy is born with history"...
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.
This article is free to read if you sign up or sign in.
If you have already registered or subscribed, please sign in to continue.
Questions or problems? Email helpdesk@businesslive.co.za or call 0860 52 52 00.