A good week for Jonny Steinberg

A good week for Jonny Steinberg

Jonny Steinberg, author, academic, columnist and FM contributor, is one of eight winners of the National Book Critics Circle Awards for 2024. It is one of the most prestigious literary prizes in the US and is voted on by literary critics. Steinberg won the biography award with Winnie & Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage — “a Shakespearean drama”, according to the National Book Critics Circle. Circle committee chair Elizabeth Taylor says: “Steinberg’s deeply insightful, painstakingly researched [book] unmasks the Mandelas, sliding past their public mythos.” Steinberg teaches in the US at Yale University’s Council on African Studies.

A bad week for Barbara Creecy

Of all the madcap ideas for using South Africa’s wildlife to make money, Barbara Creecy’s scheme to let tourists partake of rhino horn’s “medicinal effects” is one of the more bizarre. The environment minister claims it will ensure that people in rural areas have an incentive for conservation. South Africa’s rhinos, which make up about 80% of the world population, are already endangered through poaching. Killing more of these animals for the alleged restorative powers of their horns can only drive up the demand. The minister herself has said that 450 were killed last year by poachers.