When I was a child, we had a narrow built-in linen cupboard in the passage of our apartment. Here my … Read More

District Six was already a large open sore when I first came to live in Cape Town in 1974. This … Read More

I first came across the writings of Dag Hammarskjöld in 1976, after the Soweto Uprising. This was through the English … Read More

I’ve never managed interviews very well and should write a self-help booklet on “Ten Excellent Ways to Wreck an Interview”. … Read More

When we first moved to Cape Town in 1974, we rented a semi-detached house at the end of Nicol Street, … Read More

There is a small section on the gravel path that circles Deer Park (formerly Van Riebeeck Park) above Vredehoek, on … Read More

Auctions offer a great ‘data base’ for an author wanting to furnish a novel – particularly if an entire single … Read More

 During the 1980s my husband, Don Pinnock, began researching the life of the radical, anti-apartheid journalist, Ruth First. She had … Read More

Perhaps everyone remembers the country of their birth with particular depth and pathos when they no longer live there. Perhaps … Read More

My ability to create characters is fuelled by six milieus in which I found myself during the course of my … Read More

    During the apartheid years, it was common practice to detain political activists indefinitely without trial. I once accompanied … Read More

The poems and prose pieces in Africa! My Africa! are sequenced to flow along the straight open empty roads between … Read More

In answer to a question posed by a young man Vredehoek, Cape Town, March 2012 It is like an artist … Read More

Today, Monday 12 March 2012, is my sixtieth birthday and I would be honoured if you would celebrate with me … Read More

Patricia Schonstein responds to the Infamous Questionnaire by Alex Smith Banjos, Shooting Tin Cans, Goya, Green Fingers, Frescos and Afrocarpus … Read More

As a teenager growing up in the former Rhodesia, I used to buy glass beads from a general-dealer in Manica … Read More

What was the origin of the idea for your novel, The Apothecary’s Daughter? And what were the influences, those you … Read More

My method of creating fictitious people has been long in growing. Some personages are entirely invented and bear no intentional … Read More

We, the people of South Africa, declare, for all our country and the world to hear, that this land of … Read More

Yesterday I gave a Masterclass to grade ten students at St Cyprian’s School in Cape Town who had studied my … Read More

The aerial bombing of cities began during World War 1 and grew to a vast scale during World War 2. … Read More

I first heard Glen Cowan’s A spring song when I was about 16 years old. He read it aloud at … Read More

 Over the years of our friendship, I’ve had the pleasure of hearing Marinella Garuti recount many of the extraordinary incidents … Read More

Deep-aging, the last phase of a long life, is the subject of seven of the poems and prose pieces in … Read More

When The Apothecary’s Daughter was first published in 2004, I received a call from a well-known bookseller. Her question was: … Read More