Editorial

Dear Reader,


In the calm before the storm of the election month, we have decided to make this issue a little more creative and save the politics for next month. We’re looking at writers, musicians and emerging forms of art and theatre from South Africa that have made and are making South Africa heard. Art by its nature is universal, allowing people to communicate without the attached societal strings. That language has helped to broadcast South African issues both at home and abroad, and we live in the hope that it encourages people to get to know us as a nation, and to feel positively and empathetically toward us.

From the time when apartheid was still the rule of law, to the transition period where the world watched as we worked at transforming peacefully to this new nation, to the present day struggle to make the nation our own, our creative expression has helped draw us closer together as South Africans, and draw the outside world into ours. South Africa is a country of artistic opportunity and home to rich and varied cultures. Slowly, and through our creative expression the outside world is beginning to realise that.

As books are translated and published abroad, bands make headway into the international music scene, and our poems reach people we may never meet and who might never see our country, we would like to salute those who work to a different beat and create those avenues for us. The long, oddly timed hours, poor financial reward and countless ‘Thank you, but we will have to turn you down’ letters – we appreciate those efforts, and without them, our nation would, most likely, be a lot less ‘rainbow’ and a lot less ‘nation’. Hats off to you!

The Roots Republic Team