YES I AM

Taking its cue from ‘the first time’, this is a collage of what it’s like to be South African, and male, and gay.

The experiences of some forty writers come together, in stories, poems, letters, diary-entries, SMSes and emails … Among the stories they tell are of first love in the face of colour legislation that outlaws it, love that blossoms despite religious injunctions against it, a chance finding of a condom in the jacket pocket of a life partner, the sheer fun of being young and gay in an early-morning that makes Cape Town look gorgeous …

Brushing shoulders with a swathe of new and emerging writers are two actor Knights (Sir Antony Sher and Sir Nigel Hawthorne), two winners of the Alan Paton Non-Fiction Award (Edwin Cameron and Jonny Steinberg), the Dean of Cape Town Rowan Q Smith, novelists Damon Galgut, André Carl van der Merwe, Gerald Kraak and K Sello Duiker, legendary TAC activist Zackie Achmat, theatre director David Lan, literary agent Tony Peake, playwrights Peter Krummeck, Nicholas Spagnoletti and Pieter Jacobs, arts journalist Shaun de Waal, imam Muhsin Hendricks, defrocked and then reinstated DRC minister Laurie Gaum, Delmas Treason Trialist Simon Nkoli, actor Blaise Koch … and the alter-ego of that phantom ex-Ambassadress Evita Bezuidenhout, Pieter-Dirk Uys.

Among the newer voices are Fabian Ah-Sing, Shaundré Balie, Fourie Botha, Alisdair Campbell, Kyle Carson, Steve Colborne, Peter Damm, Roger Diamond, Pieter Fourie, Imraan Jaffer, Twanji Kalula, Kai Lossgott, Drummond
Marais, Mothusi Mathibe, Andy Mullins, Marius Roux, Tshetlo Selebalo, Werner Ungerer, D Watson, and Rahiem Whisgary.