For years, Rian Malan has unflinchingly dared to say the unsayable about his native country, believing murder, corruption and disharmony will tear the rainbow nation into its separate colours. It's a conviction that has cost him his marriage and almost his sanity.

In an article in The Observer, Tim Adams says of Malan: 'He is nomadic by habit, staying mostly at friends' houses, pitching up with a duffel bag and a toothbrush, borrowing their computers and their cars, writing his stories. He has an uneasy relationship with communications technology – text messages and e-mails tend to come in dozens or not at all. In a misfiring Merc borrowed from another friend, he takes me down the road to a restaurant and we sit in the still summer evening while the squad cars of private security firms slowly circle. We talk about the news, about David Rattray, about De la Rey and about crime, the subject to which all conversations in SA seem quickly to turn. Malan pulls on his cigarette, cradles his wine glass, tells me about a friend who recently had a bad experience in a restaurant like this ‘when several guys with machine guns came in while he was eating. So he won't go in a restaurant now that is open on the street; he chooses those without windows’. And he explains why he has not shifted much in his apocalyptic pessimism.'
Full column in The Observer