by Paula Fourie
In Mr Entertainment, we hear the voices of the people who knew Taliep Petersen best: his family, friends and collaborators. Their stories bring to life the spaces he inhabited, vividly recounting scenes from his childhood, his rise to fame from the Cape Coon Carnival stage to the West End, his artistic collaborations, most notably with David Kramer, his family life, and his tragic death and its aftermath. In this pioneering biography of one of Cape Town’s most beloved entertainers, we encounter Petersen as a complex and many-sided personality whose influence continues to reverberate in national life.
