Short description
Fred de Vries – bilingual travel writer, journalist, published author, music fundi and coffee shop intellectual – has set a precedent with his interviews, which open up a kaleidoscope of the brave and colourful in the arts, media, politics and literature.
Long description
Fred de Vries – bilingual travel writer, journalist, published author, music fundi and coffee shop intellectual – has set a precedent with his interviews, which open up a kaleidoscope of the brave and colourful in the arts, media, politics and literature. The artists, writers, musicians, activists and entrepreneurs interviewed are representative of the cultural scene, emerging and mainstream, of post-democracy South Africa in the noughties. The author has developed quite a following of Sunday brunchers and culture vultures who thoroughly enjoy the interviews published in The Weekender and other local and international media.
Review
The Fred de Vries Interviews offers a panorama of contemporary, largely arts-oriented South Africa. The book breaks down countless stereotypes. It is beautifully researched, perceptive, humane. De Vries never lets his conversational voice dumb down intellectually engaging content. Gwen Ansell, journalist, jazz author and columnist Fred de Vries's voice - his preoccupations, frame of reference and intellectual demeanour - are those of an inside-outsider. He has lived in South Africa for years, but maintains a vital distance from a country on which so many of us battle to keep perspective. It is the unique place from which he speaks that makes his writing so important, persuasive and endlessly intriguing. Michael Titlestad, WISER