Many years ago I was invited to join a discussion group in Stellenbosch, the very picturesque South African town where I had studied philosophy. The other members were all, like me, young professionals at the beginning of their careers, and some of them had been classmates. We were looking forward to some seriously philosophical discussions, and I gladly drove the sixty kilometres once a month from Cape Town where I was working as a fiction editor. First order was to introduce ourselves. The discussion leader, who today is a professor […]

Read More →

The Talking Table What is it it abou­t tables and talking? You linger, you wish to lengthen the hour, you’d make time stand still if you knew how. If only the evening could be drawn out more. It has been so generously giving that you want to draw yet more as if from some bank of life to sustain you in the lean times that will also come. When good company and good food combine it feeds that which is not just body, not just soul but, as is proper, […]

Read More →