Writers and contributors

PHAKAMISA MAYABA is a freelance journalist and creative writer living in Colesberg. He maintains his own website, eParkeni. Edited versions of Phakamisa’s articles provide some of the core content for the Toverview site.

ANTONY OSLER is a former folksinger, school teacher, Zen monk, human rights advocate and arbitrator. He is also the author of three books on Zen in South Africa. At present he lives on Poplar Grove farm in the Great Karoo with his wife, Margie, where they raise wool sheep and lead Zen retreats.

JANNIE (ROCKY) GAGIANO is ‘n politieke wetenskaplike, politikus, akteur en satiris. Hy was lank ‘n lektor in Politieke Wetenskap aan Stellenbosch Universiteit, en ‘n verkose lid van die Stellenbosse Stadsraad. Hy het in vroeër jare vir die Libertas Teaterklub opgetree, en ná sy aftrede vir die teatergroep Vleis, Rys en Aartappels. Hy is deesdae ook bekend vir sy vlymskerp satiriese pen.

R.W. (BILL) JOHNSON is a distinguished historian, political scientist and journalist, and one of South Africa’s most prominent and most perceptive political analysts. In recent years, Bill and his wife, the Russian-born historian Irina Filatova, have become friends of Maeder and Les Osler, and have visited them on Hanglip Farm. Bill’s articles normally appear behind paywalls, but he has kindly agreed to make them available to Toverview.

JASPER COOK: jazz musician, composer, Karoo-lover, raconteur and friend. He currently lives in Johannesburg, but has spent a lot of time on Hanglip Farm, and is dreaming of returning to the platteland. Read more about him here >>. Jasper has started his own website, AndThisIsJaz. Wonderful content, and technologically unique. (In his Other Life, he was a computer wizard.) It also contains his Hanglip Farm blog, again with important material about the farm, its ecology and sustainable future, and current efforts to revitalise cultivation, based on traditional farming methods in Zimbabwe.

DESTINE NDE is a Cameroonian writer now living in the Klein Karoo town of Willlowmore with his wife and two children.

TERRY BELL is a Cape Town-based  journalist, commentator and author, specialising in political and economic analysis and labour matters. He maintains a blog called Terry Bell Writes, which also contains links to his postcast channel, Reality Unleashed. He has kindly agreed to make his insightful articles available to Toverview.

JAY H. ELL is the psuedonym of a South African-born medical practitioner living in the United States. He served as president of the SRC at UCT in the early 1960s. He writes a blog titled ‘I Write What I Like’ – the title of a column he wrote in a student publication at UCT many years ago.