A blast from the past
A Letter to Eric and Donald Trump Jnr
Hey boys!
Just wanted to congratulate you on your successful hunting trip to Zimbabwe. Our papers have been full of pictures of you guys holding up dead...
Citizen Cane (& Coke)
Citizenship issues seem to be in the news lately. Here's a column I wrote in 2010. Not much has changed.
IF the ANC gets its way, which generally happens in this benevolent dictatorship of ou...
An open letter to ANC MP Lindiwe Michelle Maseko
Dear Comrade Lindiwe,
You suggested the other day that the SABC should broadcast the national anthem twice a day – at 6am and again at midday – to foster patriotism. Well done! If there is one thing ...
An open letter to Kendall Jones – femme fatale of the African jungle
Dear Kendall,
May I call you Kendall? Ms Jones sounds so formal. Besides, I feel like I know you. Yes, I do mean ‘know’ in the biblical sense. You look eerily similar to a dozen or so women I’ve slep...
Peer review pressure is mounting
My books have garnered around forty or fifty reviews.
I have been called everything from "the Che Guevara of literary commentary" to "the literary equivalent of the Unabomber". I have been described ...
Juju and the wrong arm of the law
The Honourable Comrade Julius Malema has been appointed to the Judicial Services Commission. This is not a drill. Women and children first.
When I heard the news, I went into a spin, began drinking h...
Would you like your Schnauzer medium or well done?
Oh, to have been in the ancient Chinese prefecture-level city of Yulin a few days ago. To walk along the shores of Lake Hongjiannao, smelling the peach blossoms and basking in the sultry summer air. T...
A letter to the Hon. Julius Malema
Dear Honourable Comrade Commander-in-Chief,
Congratulations on landing once again with your bum firmly in the butter.
If sheltered employment is what you’re looking for, you could do a lot worse tha...
Death or glory
Hello. My name is Ben Trovato and I am an addict.
My bum is a mess of weeping couch sores and my face looks like roadkill. And still I cannot stop. If there is a game of soccer on the telly, I have t...
Jungle Fever at the World Cup
Underage bromeliads cavorting around a psychedelic pumpkin. Depraved mangrove-men banging up against flirtatious fuschia.
Just in case you thought you were watching the Chelsea Flower Show moments af...
Shoot me now
If you’re going to expose yourself, there’s no better place to do it than in the Namib Desert.
“Come up,” said my daughter, Liberty. “We’ll shoot you.” A lot of fathers live in fear of hearing those ...
A misanthrope’s lament
Writing is a solitary business. But so is life, if we allow it be.
I'm neither talented nor crazy enough to be a genuine recluse, yet I find myself becoming increasingly isolated. It's not so much th...