McBride of Frankenmanto

McBride of Frankenmanto
Sarah Britten
9781920143183
Softback: 168 x 168mm
December 2007

£13.95 Delivered

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From the bestselling author of The Art of the South African Insult

What a year it has been. Since the appearance of The Art of the South African Insult, we’ve had the drunk judge, the koelie cruiser, Robert “pants on fire” McBride and presidential proctologist Ronald Suresh Roberts, who is apparently the least likeable man in the land. We got our collective knickers in a knot over a song about a Boer War general, a bank tried to organize mass protest about crime by writing letters to President Mbeki and Schabir Shaik began his quest to spend his entire jail sentence in a hospital bed. Civil servants went on strike, but nobody noticed and Jacob Zuma jokes went out of fashion but the Kangaman still can. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang raised our hopes after being packed off to hospital for a liver transplant and then dashed them by returning to work, hale and hearty, as Frankenmanto.

McBride of Frankmanto: The Return of the South African Insult takes us on another Diepsloot taxi ride through the South African psyche, from Aikona to Dlamini-Zzzzzzuma.

Dr. Sarah Britten has been described by Barry Ronge as “Hitler with tits”. Her first piece of comic reportage, on the wonders of kugels and buying a Matric dance dress in Sandton City, appeared in Style magazine in 1991 when she was 17. She has won Sanlam Prizes for Youth Literature for The Worst Year of My Life—So Far (2000) and The Martin Tudhope Show (2002).

She wrote her Master’s research report on South African humour (with a focus on Madam & Eve) and has a doctorate in Applied English Language Studies, the title of her thesis being ‘One nation, one beer: the mythology of the new South Africa in advertising’. Her area of academic interest relates to national identity and comedy, and the concept of ‘National Intimacy’, as defined by the anthropologist Michael Herzfeld.

The good citizens of Mooinooi once tried to send her death threats after she quoted a man who described them as being like ropes—thick, hairy and twisted—but they couldn’t find her number in the phone book. David Bullard’s fans, who resemble a pack of escaped Labradors gone bad after a week without Bob Martins and Eukanuba, were mightily offended when she pointed out a punctuation error in one of his articles. She already has an active ‘hate club’ of ex-pat whingers in Perth, Australia.

Sarah enjoys birdwatching, wildlife, painting with lipstick (and pastels). She plays the piano, her favourite composer is Bach and she plans to write a fugue in four parts based on the Nokia ring tone. She can also do a mean Australian accent for anyone who asks.