Brent Meersman

Brent Meersman’s first job was as a freelance press photographer mostly for the Grocotts Mail in Grahamstown in 1989, one of the most turbulent periods in South Africa’s history.

Besides his career in journalism and as a writer, he has had an eclectic CV, including being a theatre producer, a property developer, the managing director of a hotel, a performing arts manager for an acapella group, a national campaign manager for an opposition party in South Africa’s 2004 election and then Chief of Staff in Parliament to Patricia de Lille who later became the Mayor of Cape Town.

He is a compulsive traveller, having visited 81 countries at the last count, including the Antarctic.

He is currently co-editor of GroundUp news (www.groundup.org.za).

Books:

Primary Coloured, Human & Rousseau, 2007. [roman a clé]

Reports before Daybreak, Random House, 2011 [novel]

Five Lives at Noon, Missing Ink, 2013 [novel]

80 Gays around the World, Missing Ink, 2014 [travelogue]

Homo Odyssee (80 Gays in German), Albino Press, 2015

Sunset Claws, Missing Ink, 2017 [novel]

Homo Odyssey (new English edition), Salzgeber/BrunoGmunder, 2018

A Childhood Made Up (Tafelberg, 2020) [memoir]

Rattling the Cage (PanMacmillan/Picador 2021) [essays]

Ophila and the Poet and other poems, Junket Press, 2010 [poetry]

(Poems had appeared in: New Contrast, New Contact, Botsotso, and Green Dragon)

Short stories in collections:

Speak My Language, Little Brown, UK, 2015

What Love Is, Arcadia Books, London, 2011

The Invisible Ghetto, COSAW, SA, 1993

Libretto:

Credo: a musical testament to the Freedom Charter with music by Bongani Ndodana-Breen, performed in July 2013 by the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra, and in May 2014 with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra. With soloists Sibongile Khumalo, Otto Maidi and Monika Wassung.

Theatre:

Why not socialism? A most unusual comedy (The Galloway Theatre, 2018)

Journalism:

Brent Meersman is co-editor of GroundUp.org.za.

Mail & Guardian 2003 – 2016 (weekly contributor & columnist)

This is Africa 2014 ¬– 2018 (two columns per month)

New Africa Analysis (London) South African bureau chief, writing on politics and economics 2010 – 2011.

Reviewed work for the BBC and the Financial Times (London).

Feature articles in the Sunday Independent, Business Day, The Witness, Cape Times, Die Burger, The Weekender, Bravo magazine, The Wry Republic, Politicsweb.

Contributor to the Cape Town and South African editions of: Lonely Planet, National Geographic Traveller, and Insight Guides.

Press photographer at the Grocotts Mail in Grahamstown (1989).

Chairperson of the Cape Town Press Club since 2013

Former editorial board member of the IATC – International Association of Theatre Critics (recognised by UNESCO).

Papers and contributions to academic journals:

The Legacy of Thabo Mbeki. Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies. Vol. 13. July-October 2012. University of London.

Review: Waiting for Godot. Journal of Beckett Studies 21.2 (2012)

Can arts festivals still be about art? Theater 40.3, Yale University, 2010.

Theatre Beyond Theatre, delivered in Warsaw, 2012.

From Ipi Tombi to iMumbo Jumbo in Theatre Topics, Amsterdam University Press, 2010.

Cultural Weapons: Violence in South Africa and its depiction on the stage. Theatre and Humanism, St Kliment Ohridski University Press, Bulgaria, 2009.

Democracy, Capitalism and Theatre in the new South Africa. South African Theatre Journal, University of Stellenbosch, Vol 21: 2007.

Portrait of an Artist as a Dramatic Work: Orfeus in Critical Stages, Journal of the IATC, Spring 2010.

The Generation Gap and the South African Critic, delivered at Baltic Theatre Festival, St Petersburg, Russia. 2007

Forgiveness in South African Theatre, delivered at the National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, South Africa. 2008.

Violence in South African Theatre published in Sinais de cena, University of Lisbon, 2008.

Other publications:

Infecting the City newspaper, Editor, 2010.

Cue, the National Arts Festival daily newspaper, Editor in 2007 and 2006.