Apocalyptic futures surround us. In films, books and in news feeds, we are subjected to a barrage of end-time possibilities. Award-winning writer Hedley Twidle, in quixotic mood, sets out to snatch utopia from the jaws of dystopia. Whether embarking on a bizarre quest to find Cecil Rhodes's missing nose (sliced off the bust of the Rhodes Memorial) or cycling the Scottish islands with a couple of squabbling anarchists; whether learning to surf (much too late) in the wild, freezing waters of...

'Firepool' is a chronicle of South Africa in the ‘second transition’ – one in which the foundations of the post-apartheid settlement are being shaken and questioned in all kinds of ways. From the complex legacy of artists like Moses Taiwa Molelekwa and JM Coetzee to the #FeesMustFall protests, from the N2 highway to the gnawing uncertainty of our nuclear future, Hedley Twidle treats serious subjects with a sense of playfulness, mischief and imagination. Deeply personal, and spanning cultur...

Ten years ago, I was commissioned by a famous poet-editor to write a profile of Coetzee for a London review. At the time, the offer was a big break, and could have led to great things. I was fresh out of university and the editor was high-up at Faber and Faber, a talent scout for The New Yorker. But it never got written.Instead of providing a controlled and judicious survey of the oeuvre, I found myself obsessed by minor details on the outskirts of his work. The grim memoir You...

From the underworld of zama-zama goldminers to the tragicomic closure of a Cape Town Zoo, from stick fighting to punk rock, game lodges to fruit farms, cricket pitches to mermaids, The Interpreters: South Africa's New Nonfiction assembles a range of true stories that are often more far-fetched, and more compelling, than any fiction.Featuring J. M. Coetzee • Kimon de Greef • William Dicey • Alexandra Dodd • Madeleine Fullar...