About the Book
This title features the following interviewees, complete with photos: Abdullah Ibrahim, jazz musician; Gabeba Baderoon, wordsmith; Vusi Beauchamp, comic shocker; Nikiwe Bikitsha, radio presenter; Bok van Blerk, singer; Jeanetta Blignaut, art agent; Chris Chameleon, pop boy; Kudzanai Chiurai, afro pop-artist; Toast Coetzer, lyricist; Melinda Ferguson, junkie memoirist; Fokofpolisiekar, taalrockers; Karl Gietl, nude painter; Steve Hofmeyr, singer activist; Japan and I, Sandton punks; Jaxon Rice, rock 'n' roller; June Josephs, bibliophile; Ronelda Kamfer, poet; Anton Kannemeyer, comic entrepreneur; DJ Kenzhero; Kleinboer, porn writer; Adam Levin, traveller; Eric Mafuna, businessman; and, Rian Malan, contrarian.It also features: Maja Maljevic, oil painter; Danie Marais, heartbreak poet; Lodi Matsetela, scriptwriter; Benjy Mudie, rock archivist; Jim Neversink, raconteur; Herman Niebuhr, night rider painter; Marlene Van Niekerk, skrywer; Prinses Petro, rock chick; Warren Siebrits, collector curator; Elinor Sisulu, Zim activist; Yabadaka Shamah, taxi poet; Henri Vergon, gallerist; Ivan Vladislavic, Troyeville writer; Ingrid Winterbach, novelist; and, Helen Zille, mayor.
About the Author :
Fred de Vries - Dutch-South African travel writer, journalist, published author, music fundi and coffee shop intellectual - has set a precedent with his interviews, which open up a kaleidoscope of the brave and colourful in the arts, media, politics and literature. The artists, writers, musicians, activists and entrepreneurs interviewed are representative of the cultural scene, emerging and mainstream, of post-democracy South Africa in the early noughties. De Vries has developed quite a following of Sunday brunchers and culture vultures, who thoroughly enjoy the interviews published in The Weekender and other local and international media.
Review :
The Fred de Vries Interviews offers a panorama of contemporary, largely arts-oriented South Africa. The book breaks down countless stereotypes. It is beautifully researched, perceptive, humane. De Vries never lets his conversational voice dumb down intellectually engaging content. Gwen Ansell, journalist, jazz author and columnist Fred de Vries's voice - his preoccupations, frame of reference and intellectual demeanour - are those of an inside-outsider. He has lived in South Africa for years, but maintains a vital distance from a country on which so many of us battle to keep perspective. It is the unique place from which he speaks that makes his writing so important, persuasive and endlessly intriguing. Michael Titlestad, WISER
