Editor’s Note

Iwas delighted to discover that the incredibly talented Thandiswa Mazwai, the focus of this week’s feature interview, and I have a few things in common. We overlapped during our time studying English Literature at Wits University and could compare notes on fabulous lecturers like Karen Lazar, Tawana Kupe, Tim Trengrove Jones, Gerald Gaylard and many more.

Why English Literature? I asked her. The answer goes back to probably the most influential person in her life, her mother, who died when she was 15. Her mother was a student at Wits when she passed away. “I had no idea what I was going to do when I got to university, so I decided to study what my mother was studying.”

And, she says, it has always stood her in good stead. She writes her own songs, does her own research and clearly has a masterful command of languages and expression. “I’ve kept a diary since I was 12 years old,” she told me. “I still have them all. I’ve always been a writer.” So, is there a book imminent? I hope so. But while we wait, we have the launch of her new album in Joburg, Durban and Cape Town to look forward to before she heads to New York in June.

Staying on a musical note, it’s the second annual Journey to Jazz Festival next weekend in the quaint and charming Karoo town of Prince Albert. We look at the stellar line-up of local and international stars, and all the other things you can do in this restaurant, craft and art-filled hamlet the first week of May.

It was Freedom Day yesterday, commemorating the first post-apartheid elections held 30 years ago. Dutch photographer Ilvy Njiokiktjien, who spent many years in South Africa, returned to document what the country looks like after 30 years of freedom. Her pictures tell an interesting story.