Hot Type, published by Picador Africa, is a collection of Bongani Madondo’s columns and profiles/interviews from the Sunday Time Lifestyle Supplement and other newspapers and magazines. It was launched at the Time of the Writer Festival in Durban a few months ago.

An obsessive star-tracker, he has interviewed, followed, stalked and written on the art and follies of a varied cast of local, continental and international artists, thugs, celebrities, royalty and pop figures.

“I am a culture writer not because I report about the arts,” says Bongani Madondo, “but because I operate and look at the world from the cultural perspective, moving from there to the political, aesthetics and economics.”

His worked has appeared in The Mail & Guardian, City Press, Sunday World and Marie Claire.

Bongani is presently a features writer for the Sunday Times Lifestyle section. In 1999 he was a Steve Biko Journalism fellow, in 2003 he won the Arts & Culture Journalist of the Year and in 2004 the Vodacom Feature Writer of the Year. He wrote the inaugural editorial for the journal, We Write what we Like (www.wewrite.org)