A Feast For Writers and Readers 2

Last week I wrote about two captivatingly interesting sessions I attended at this year’s Franschhoek Literary Festival (FLF).

One session was with Olympic track champion Caster Semenya, who recently published her heart-wrenching memoir ‘The Race To Be Myself’.

At the session Semenya talked about her horrific physical and emotional treatment by an international sports body, competing track athletes and others.

The other session was with co-authors of ‘Coloured: How Classification Become Culture’ Tessa Dooms and Lynsey Chutel.

In their book Dooms and Chutel write about the quest, by them and other Coloureds, on reclaiming coloured identities and cultural legacies from racist stereotyping and ethno-nationalism.

As promised last week, I will share more on the other sessions I attended at FLF – an annual three-day literary festival.

The session titled ‘Demobbing the Mob’ featured three writers who spoke on the research and interviews they conducted with gang bosses, scallywags and dodgy characters.

Caryn Dolley is an investigative journalist and the author of ‘Clash of the Cartels’, Karl Kemp authored ‘Why We Kill: Mob Justice and the New Vigilantism in South Africa’ and Mark Shaw wrote ‘Breaking the Bombers’.

As an accomplished writer, Kemp gained notoriety with his book ‘Promised Land: Exploring South Africa’s Land Conflict’.

Shaw is the director of Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime.

His other books, ‘Hitman For Hire’ and ‘Give Us More Guns’, reveal just how well criminal syndicates are organised.

With the judiciary under populist attack in many countries, including the United States – not only in Africa – the session with Thuli Madonsela, Dan Mafora and Mark Gevisser was interesting as well.

Now heading the Centre for Social Justice at the University of Stellenbosch, Madonsela, who told me of her recent visit to Namibia as a guest of a local financial services corporate, came to prominence as South Africa’s public protector from 2009 to 2016.

The other two panellists, both authors like Madonsela, spoke passionately about the South African constitution and its pivotal importance for that country’s democratic health and judicial independence.

Mafora recently published ‘Capture in the Court’ and Gevisser ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Litigated’.

Madonsela told me she looks forward to returning to holiday in the Land of the Brave.

With the pros and cons of artificial intelligence (AI) featuring in the media nearly every day, I felt compelled to upgrade my knowledge on the subject by attending the ‘I Spy With My Little AI’ session.

There, Arthur Goldstuck and Kerushan Govender unpacked the question: “Is this robot revolution friend or foe to human creativity, prosperity and employment?”.

Having penned over 20 books, Goldstuck spoke on his latest one, ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to AI’, and Govender on his ‘Age of Agency: Rise with AI’.

Am I now any wiser about AI?

Yes, but admittedly ever so little.

FLF is a feast to behold, a must-attend event for authors and book lovers, and for me personally, it is my annual cultural fix.

It provides a platform for discussion and debate with the writers, and the location, Franschhoek, must be one of the continent’s most picturesque towns.

• Danny Meyer is reachable at danny@smecompete.com