Email me your additions, suggestions, corrections, revisions, reviews, etc. and I will be happy to update the list as time allows.
FICTION / HISTORICAL FICTION
A Walk in the Night and Other Stories Alex Laguma: “The effects of unjust and inhumane society are internalized by La Guma's characters. Alone they are predetermined by fate to fall from grace- as a result of tenement life, working conditions and being so far seperated from hope of recovery for so long. This might only be a cynical lament for the underdog. But La Guma's account is striking because it subtly documents the gathering strength of the discontent of the neglected masses. Indeed, La Guma's main subject matter is the overwhelming strength of the oppressed that cannot remain bound. A solid insider appraisal of the roots of a people's triumph over illegitimate, abused power”
Advance, Retreat: Selected Short Stories Richard Rive: A collection of twelve stories by the South African writer, who is a member of the so-called Cape Coloured community. Rive captures the ironies inherent in the Coloured predicament. In the title story, the quibbling of a group of high-school teachers about who will have what role in Macbeth becomes a metaphor for the inability of South African intellectuals to keep their attention fixed upon the realities of their social and political situation.
Age of Iron J.M. Coetzee: From Publishers Weekly: Harsh, unflinching and powerful, Coetzee's ( Waiting for the Barbarians ) new novel is a cry of moral outrage at the legacy that apartheid has created in South Africa. In scenes of stunning ferocity, he depicts the unequal warfare waging between the two races, a conflict in which the balance of power is slowly shifting. An elderly woman's letters to her daughter in America make up the narrative. Near death from rapidly advancing cancer, Cape Town resident Mrs. Curren is a retired university professor and political liberal who has always considered herself a "good person" in deploring the government's obfuscatory and brutal policies, though she has been insulated from the barbarism they produce. When the teenage son of her housekeeper is murdered by the police and his activist friend is also shot by security forces, Mrs. Curren realizes that "now my eyes are open and I can never close them again." The only person to whom she can communicate her anguished feelings of futility and waste is an alcoholic derelict whom she prevails on to be her messenger after her death, by mailing the packet of her letters to her daughter. In them she records the rising tide of militancy among young blacks; brave, defiant and vengeful, they are a generation whose hearts have turned to iron. His metaphors in service to a story that moves with the implacability of a nightmare, Coetzee's own urgent message has never been so cogently delivered.
Afrikaners: An Historical Interpretation, The G.H.L. LeMay: (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1995) This is a history of the Afrikaner peoples from their arrival in southern Africa in 1652, up to the present day. The account covers the establishment of the Dutch East India trading post in the Cape, the Greak Trek of the 1830s, the discovery of gold and diamonds in the Transvaal in the late nineteenth century, the Anglo-Boer War, the effects of the two World Wars, and the democratic elections of 1994. At all these stages, G H L Le May assesses not only the development of the state institutions of Afrikaner society, but the evolution of the people's distinct mentality.
Atlas of African Affairs, The L.L. Ieuan Griffiths (New York: Rutledge Press, 1995) 2nd Edition.: The Atlas of African Affairs is divided into five sections dealing with environmental, historical, political and economic issues and with Southern Africa. Throughout, the book presents an interdisciplinary, integrated perspective on African affairs. Most of the chapters deal with continent-wide themes and are illustrated by maps of Africa as a whole drawn to a standardised outline of the same map projection and scale.
Bitter Fruit: A Novel Achmat Dangor 2005: From Booklist: Will the truth set you free? Not so, according to this deeply unsettling novel about the new South Africa. Longtime anti-apartheid activist Dangor blends the intimate secrets of one mixed-race family with the politics of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), where perpetrators confess their crimes in public in return for amnesty. "We want to forgive, but we don't want to forget. You can't have it both ways," discovers Silas Ali, once an anti-apartheid activist, now a bureaucrat with the TRC. When he glimpses the Afrikaans policeman Du Boise in a Johannesburg shopping mall and remembers how Du Boise arrested Ali 20 years ago and raped Ali's wife, Lydia, in front of him, the memory sets off reverberations with Ali, Lydia, and their son. Now Du Boise wants to confess to the TRC. Whom will that help? What truth? But keeping quiet offers no healing either, just seething guilt and fury. Dangor writes from the inside and yet with distance, challenging some sacred platitudes of the heroic struggle and the new elite but never settling for the easy ambiguity that dismisses all values as being the same. Told from many characters' viewpoints--anguished, angry, tender, ironic--the searing narratives reveal the wounds of betrayal and no reconciliation. The people and their stories are unforgettable. Hazel Rochman
Black South African Women: An Anthology of Plays Kathy Perkins: From Library Journal: This is the first anthology of plays to focus on the lives of contemporary black South African women. Editor Perkins (theater, Univ. of Illinois) has collected ten works ranging from protest plays of the 1980s to plays about the challenges for blacks, "coloreds," and Indians in the "new" South Africa of the 1990s. Biographical information and interviews with each playwright are included. Several of them are self-taught, and despite their achievements they struggle to have their plays widely accepted at home. These seven women and three men playwrights write primarily in English but also use Zulu, Afrikaans, and Sotho; translations should have been included for these sections. Sara Paulk, Coastal Plain Regional Lib., Tifton, GA
Boyhood J.M. Coetzee: From Library Journal In this slim, interesting volume, Coetzee, a South African writer distinguished both as a novelist (Master of St. Petersburg, LJ 9/1/94) and an essayist (Giving Offense: Essays on Censorship, LJ 3/15/96), reflects about who he is and why he writes as he does. Using third-person narration, these "scenes" read more like a novella than a true autobiography. Coetzee develops his character, a young boy on the verge of adolescence, through a richly detailed interior monolog. Trying to make sense of his place in his family, his parents' unhappy marriage, his conflicting needs for nurturance and independence from his mother, and his complicated feelings about the racially segregated society in which he lives, Coetzee struggles with basic questions of identity and purpose. The honest intensity he uses to examine his thoughts and actions leads to a foundation of self-understanding and confidence from which the writer was formed. Denise S. Sticha, Seton Hill Coll. Lib., Greensburg, Pa.
Coconut Kopano Matlwa 2008 Product Description: An important rumination on youth in modern-day South Africa, this haunting debut novel tells the story of two extraordinary young women who have grown up black in white suburbs and must now struggle to find their identities. The rich and pampered Ofilwe has taken her privileged lifestyle for granted, and must confront her swiftly dwindling sense of culture when her soulless world falls apart. Meanwhile, the hip and sassy Fiks is an ambitious go-getter desperate to leave her vicious past behind for the glossy sophistication of city life, but finds Johannesburg to be more complicated and unforgiving than she expected. These two stories artfully come together to illustrate the weight of history upon a new generation in South Africa.
Cion: A Novel by Zakes Mda From The Washington Post Reviewed by James A. Miller One of the most prolific black writers of post-apartheid South Africa, Zakes Mda, has now cast his roaming, wry and satirical eye upon the United States, in particular the rural southeastern Ohio community outside of Athens, Ohio. Readers of his first novel, Ways of Dying, will immediately recognize Toloki, the narrator of Cion, a professional mourner who has now become somewhat of an itinerant because of "the lack of interesting deaths in a South Africa that had become a stable society." He hopes to create "more exciting deaths from the tombstones of the world." . . . In the end, Cion strongly suggests that ubuntu may well offer a way for America to confront the ghosts of its racial past.
Conservationist, The Nadine Gordimer The winner of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature paints a fascinating portrait of a "conservationist" left only with the possibility of self-preservation, a subtle and detailed study of the forces and relationships that seethe in South Africa today
Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa Antjie Krog, (Random House, 1999) Established in 1995 and headed by the renowned cleric Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission faced the awesome task of hearing the testimony of the victims and perpetrators of apartheid. In this book, Antjie Krog, a South African journalist and poet who has covered the work of the commission, recounts the drama, the horrors, the wrenching personal stories of the victims and their families.
Cry, The Beloved Country Alan Paton Review 'A beautiful novel, rich firm and moving...compelling' New York Times. 'Cry, The Beloved Country...was the great raiser of popular awareness of South Africa...the most influential South African novel ever written' Nadine Gordimer, Observer
Disgrace J.M. Coetzee (winner of the 1999 Booker Prize) Set in post-apartheid Cape Town and on a remote farm in the Eastern Cape, this is a novel about a man and his personal journeys of love, grace, and disgrace in the new South Africa.
Forced to Grow Sindiwe Magona: To My Children's Children, the powerful and widely acclaimed autobiography of Sindiwe Magona's early years in South Africa, announced the arrival of a major new black writer. Forced to Grow covers the next years in her tough but triumphant life. It continues the story after the point when her husband deserted her and left her, aged 23, to fend for herself and her three small children. With vibrance and intimacy, she describes her experiences as a young teacher, her ambitious studies, agonies as a parent during the 1976 student revolt, involvement in women's organizations working for racial harmony, and her mind-blowing journeyings between Guguletu and New York after receiving a scholarship to attend Columbia University. Throughout she retains a sharp sense of humor even when describing the many hardships and crises of her eventful life. Sindiwe Magona grew up in Transkei village and spent her adolescence on the Cape Flats. She lives and works in New York City.
Gardening at Night Diane Awerbuck “The book bravely paints, with extravagant yet precise strokes, the story of a young woman's life. It appears as though the story is autobiographical and effectively vascillates between the very real experience of growing up in South Africa and the dream-like continuum of memories which inhabit our conciousness. Unforgettable references abound, and no South African, having lived at the time, could possibly deny that this book unceremoniously and with powerful imagery thrusts the experience to the fore. The book is brash in it's exposure of intensly personal experiences and there is a powerful sense of reality throughout. Ms Awerbuck leads you through the experience with intricately referenced prose which at no point slows from it's formidable pace. The momentum thus created makes it difficult to put down for even a few minutes, for fear that it will continue without you.”
Heart of Redness, The by Zakes Mda. In Mda's richly suggestive novel, a Westernized African, Camagu, becomes embroiled in a village dispute that has its roots in the 19th century. The war between the amaXhosa and the British in South Africa (known to Westerners as the Zulu Wars) was interrupted by a strange, messianic interlude in which the amaXhosa followed the self-destructive commands of the prophet Nongqawuse and were split between followers of Nongqawuse (Believers) and their opponents (Unbelievers). In the village of Qolorha-by-Sea in the late 20th century, the Believers still flourish. They put the onus for the distressing failure of Nongqawuse's visions on the Unbelievers' unbelief. The chief Believer is Zim; his rival, the chief Unbeliever, is Bhonco. The white store owner, Dalton, whose ancestor killed Zim and Bhonco's forefather, Xikixa, is on the Believers' side in the village's current controversy over whether or not to allow a casino in the village. The Believers oppose the changes they foresee coming to the village's traditions. The Unbelievers want economic development. Camagu originally comes to Qolorha looking for a woman whose memory haunts him. He ends up being associated with the cold, beautiful Xoliswa Ximiya, Bhonco's daughter, whose scorn for tradition eventually drives her from the village. Secretly, however, Camagu lusts for Qukezwa, the squat but sexy daughter of Zim. Mda's sympathies are with the Believers, but his eminent fairness forbids mere didacticism, and his joy in the back and forth of village politics beautifully communicates itself to the reader through poetic language enlivened by humor and irony.
House Gun, The Nadine Gordimer The story of a privileged white couple as they come to terms with the prospect of their son as a murderer.
July's People Nadine Gordimer Not all whites in South Africa are outright racists. Some, like Bam and Maureen Smales in Nadine Gordimer's thrilling and powerful novel July's People, are sensitive to the plights of blacks during the apartheid state. So imagine their quandary when the blacks stage a full-scale revolution that sends the Smaleses scampering into isolation. The premise of the book is expertly crafted; it speaks much about the confusing state of affairs of South Africa and serves as the backbone for a terrific adventure.
Kikuyu Etienne van Heerden This is the story of a boy's life on an Afrikaner farm in the Karoo desert. As a fictional representation, it offers fascinating insight into the struggle of an Afrikaner boy as he grows up during the Apartheid years.
King Leopolds Ghost: A story of greed, terror, & heroism in colonial Africa Adam Hochschild (Feminist Press, 1999) A book that chills you to the bone, it is about the Congo under the brutal control of the Belgium's'. It speaks to the horrors of colonialism and the decimation that followed in its wake.
Letters to Martha and Other Stories Dennis Brutus
Life and Times of Michael K J.M. Coetzee Product Description: In a South Africa torn by civil war, Michael K sets out to take his mother back to her rural home. On the way there she dies, leaving him alone in an anarchic world of brutal roving armies. Imprisoned, Michael is unable to bear confinement and escapes, determined to live with dignity. Life and Times of Michael K goes to the centre of human experience -- the need for an interior, spiritual life, for some connections to the world in which we live, and for purity of vision.
Mind of South Africa, The Allister Sparks Out of print, but available in used bookstores and libraries.
Mind Your Colour by V.A. February is about the creation and maintenance of a cultural stereotype. It deals with the people classified by South African racial legislation as 'coloureds', and with the image forced upon them by South African society, an image which reflects and reinforces the political subordination of the group. Dr February examines the 'coloured' stereotype in English, Afrikaans and Dutch literature, suggesting that it has served as a means of social control and repression. From the first unflattering historical depiction of the Khoi to the work of contemporary writers, the picture ranges from the comically distorted to ambiguity and near-kinship, culminating in 'coloured' youngsters embracing the Black Consciousness cause in 1976. But as political consciousness has grown among the 'coloureds', the general picture has become less favourable. Dr February considers in detail Afrikaans authors and novels which deal specifically with the problem of the 'coloureds'. His central thesis is that their work has done much to shape Afrikaner attitudes towards black people: the late Dr Donges cited the work of Regina Neser and Sarah Gertrude Millin in support of his law to prohibit 'sex across the colour line' in 1948. In Dr February's words, this book is 'an attempt to hold a mirror to South Africa's dirty face,' to show up the 'coloured' image as an artificial stereotype.
Miriam's Song: A Memoir Mark Mathabane Kirkus Reviews: From the South African–born Mathabane (Kaffir Boy, 1986; African Women, 1994, etc.) comes this unsparingly graphic account of his sister's growing up in the last days of apartheid--when violence turned black townships into killing fields and schooling ceased as young Comrades insisted on liberation before education. The story told by Miriam, now studying in the US, is a searing indictment of the violence to women engendered both by apartheid and by traditional African attitudes. Both quashed human potential and aspirations, and good daughters and students like Miriam were as penalized as their more recalcitrant sisters. Born in 1969 and raised in Alexandria, a sprawling black township to the north of Johannesburg, Miriam offers vivid details of township life: the food eaten (a whole chicken was an undreamed-of luxury), the small houses (spotless despite the number of people living in them), and the ubiquitous scrawny dogs picking over the uncollected trash. She describes growing up as the middle daughter in a family made dysfunctional by circumstance. Her illiterate father, unable to find better-paying jobs, is often unemployed, drinks, gambles away their food money, and beats the children; her mother, a devout Christian, lacks the proper documentation and also has employment problems; and her elder brother steals Miriam's savings. The black schools are poorly equipped, the teachers are sadistic, and Miriam (who wants to become a nurse) soon finds her ambition thwarted by the times and by custom. A teenager in the 1980s, when anti-government violence made life in townships dangerous, she has to stay home when the schools are forced to close. Then, in a society where black men traditionally are free to do as they please (to take 13-year-old girls for wives, for example, as one of her uncle does), she is raped by her boyfriend and finds herself pregnant. But brother Mark, who has used his tennis talents as a passport to the US and success, will change Miriam's life. A moving story of a survivor, but Miriam herself often seems more a reporter recalling an eventful past than a reflective memoirist. -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP
My Children! My Africa!' Athol Fugard (Play) The story of a white South African girl who becomes involved in debates with a black South African boy and his teacher, but as the racial tension increases, tragedy becomes inevetable. Fugard tells a powerful story which not only addresses the racially charged South Africa he is from, but race relations and the need to realize the differences between people of race are only skin deep. About the Author The New Yorker has said of Athol Fugard, "A rare playwright, who could be a primary candidate for either the Nobel Prize in Literature or the Nobel Peace Prize." His major works for the stage include: Blood Knot; "Master Harold"...and the boys; My Children! My Africa!; A Lesson from Aloes; The Road to Mecca; Valley Song; and The Captain's Tiger.
My Traitors Heart: A South African Exile Returns to Face His Country, His Tribe & His Conscience Rian Malan “A deeply compelling story of the experience and horror of South Africa shared by all of its citizens”. Like many white South Africans of his generation, Rian Malan fled his country to dodge the draft. He felt incredibly guilty for this act, but would have felt equally guilty for not doing it: "I ran because I wouldn't carry a gun for apartheid, and because I wouldn't carry a gun against it." Malan, the product of a well-known Afrikaner family, returned to South Africa and produced My Traitor's Heart, which explores the literal and figurative brutalities of apartheid. Death is a constant presence on these pages, and the narrative is driven by Malan's criminal reportage. This acclaimed book intends to illuminate South Africa's poisonous race relations under apartheid, and few books do it this well.
Pickup, The Nadine Gordimer Review: While Nobel Prize-winner Gordimer's trenchant fiction has always achieved universal relevance in capturing apartheid and its lingering effects in South Africa, this new work attains still broader impact as she explores the condition of the world's desperate dispossessed. To Julie Summer, rebellious daughter of a rich white investment banker, the black mechanic she meets at a garage is initially merely an interesting person to add to her circle of bohemian friends. But as their relationship swiftly escalates, Julie comes to understand her lover's perilous tightrope attempts to find a country that will shelter him. Abdu, as he calls himself (it's not his real name), is an illegal immigrant from an abysmally poor Arab country. Now on the verge of deportation from South Africa, he's forced to return to his ancestral village. Julie insists on marrying him and going with him, despite his fears that she does not understand how primitive conditions are in the desert town where his strict Muslim family lives. Abdu (now Ibrahim) is astonished when she willingly does manual labor to earn his family's respect. They clash, however, over his decision to try once again to gain entry into a country that discriminates against immigrants from his part of the world. Gradually realizing that she has finally found a center to her heretofore aimless life, Julie matures; in many ways, she has become more cognizant of reality than her frantically hopeful husband. Gordimer handles these psychological nuances with understated finesse. With characteristic bravado, she reprises a character from her previous book, The House Gun, to show how some blacks are now faring in a reorganized South African society. The brilliant black defense lawyer in that book has taken advantage of opportunities to join a banking conglomerate; he is now involved in "the intimate language of money." It's the people still trapped by economic chaos and racism who now interest this inveterate and eloquent champion of the world's outcasts.
Playing in the Light Zoe Wicomb From The New Yorker In her ambitious third novel, Wicomb explores South Africa's history through a woman's attempt to answer questions surrounding her past. Marion Campbell discovers that she is the daughter of "play-whites," a couple legally classified as "coloured" who dared to obliterate their history and cut family ties in order to acquire the benefits of whiteness. Marion's mother plastered herself with makeup to prevent her body from betraying her; in her father's view, "whiteness is without restrictions. It has the fluidity of milk; its glow is far-reaching." The subterfuge, however, made for an unhappy household. Marion's friendship with a young black woman deepens her understanding of the importance of historical memory, and her struggle for self-knowledge becomes, in Wicomb's able hands, a sign of South Africa's hopeful post-apartheid future. 2006 The New Yorker
Poetry and Protest: A Dennis Brutus Reader by Dennis Brutus (Author), Aisha Karim (Editor), Lee Sustar (Editor) Product Description "We in South Africa needed the support of the international community in our efforts to end the vicious system of racial oppression called apartheid. We had to have eloquent advocates to tell the world our story and persuade it to come to our assistance. . . . We had none more articulate and with all the credibility and integrity so indispensable than Dennis Brutus to plead our cause. He was quite outstanding, and we South Africans owe an immense debt of gratitude."-Archbishop Desmond Tutu "Dennis Brutus stands as a tribune of the dispossessed. His willingness to speak out on all cases of injustice and side with the oppressed makes him the type of person we all wish to emulate. His perseverance, dedication, and eloquence have made him not only a hero for the South African freedom struggle, but for all those who struggle for social justice."-Bill Fletcher, TransAfrica Forum This vital original collection of interviews, poetry, and essays of the much-loved anti-apartheid leader is the first book of its kind to bring together the full, forceful range of his work. Brutus, imprisoned along with Nelson Mandela, is known worldwide for his unparalleled eloquence as an opponent of the apartheid South African regime. Since its fall, he has been a voice for justice and humanity, speaking and writing extensively on issues of debt, poverty, war, racism, and neoliberalism. Dennis Brutus is a lifelong human rights activist and poet. He was imprisoned with Nelson Mandela on Robben Island in South Africa and became an eloquent spokesperson for the anti-apartheid movement. He currently teaches African studies and literature at the University of Pittsburgh. Lee Sustar has written extensively on the global justice and labor movements for numerous publications. He is a member of the National Writers Union and lives in Chicago, Illinois.
Power of One, The Bryce Courtenay: Review: Ideals must be back, for Courtenay's first novel is a fast-paced book with an old-fashioned, clean-cut hero, easily identifiable villains, no sex, and saintlike sidekicks. All done in sturdy, workmanlike prose. Set in South Africa in the 1940's, the novel resembles those enormously popular books on southern Africa written by John Buchan and H. Rider Haggard. Courtenay's Peekay, like those earlier heroes, inspires devotion from a disparate band of followers, which includes a witch doctor, a German professor, a barmaid, Gert the Afrikaans policeman, Morrie the Jewish refugee, and his Oxbridge headmaster. Courtenay lovingly evokes an African landscape of small town and bush as he describes the journey of Peekay - from a horrendously cruel boarding school to a triumphant vindication as a young man in the copper mines of what is now Zambia. At his first school, Peekay, as the only English child in an otherwise Afrikaans school, is held accountable for all the wrongs inflicted by the British. But a fortuitous meeting with an amateur boxer, "Kid Louis" Groenewald, supplies the young Peekay with the means and the drive to fight back. Peekay learns to box (boxing fans will particularly appreciate the vividly described fights) and thereafter is forever serving justice and earning Brownie points. His first teachers are the tough Afrikaner jailers of his hometown prison and a black prisoner. Later, at a prep school in Johannesburg, while the victorious Afrikaner Nationalists introduce apartheid, he is taught by the best trainer in Africa. As well as being a scholar and everybody's favorite young man, Peekay also earns a reputation among the blacks as a great chief - "The Tadpole Angel" - who is destined to save them, but not in this book. Peekay is just too noble, and his political views, perhaps reflecting those of his times, are paternal to say the least. But, nevertheless, this is a somewhat endearing, if uncritical, celebration of virtue and positive thinking. Despite the lack of shading and the chipper philosophy, then, a surprisingly refreshing debut. (Kirkus Reviews)
Renewal Time Ezekiel Mphahlele From Publishers Weekly: In 1957 Mphahlele, a professor of English denied employment, left his native South Africa for an exile that was to last 20 years. Fidelity to his people and to his art eventually led him to return to "a country where the black man has learned to wait, endure, survive" and to fictionalize his observations in the stories collected here. Poignant and eloquently political, Mphahlele's work is populated by a spectrum of citizens, ranging from a white Afrikaner who becomes aware of the individuality and humanity of his black servant in the story "The Living and the Dead," to village women on market day. Stereotyped by a racist regime as simple and imperceptive, Mphahlele's folk are in fact as complex and fragile, bewildered and graceful as any of their white oppressors. In "Point of Identity," a man debates whether to declare himself "coloured" on his identity pass (enabling him access to more material comforts) or a "native" (aligning himself with the cause). In "Mrs. Plum" a kitchen servant learns that not all white people think alike when her mistress writes editorials advocating the right of black people to govern themselves. Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Room 207 Kgebetli Moele 2008 Product Description: Set in a block of dilapidated apartments in Hillbrow, an inner-city neighborhood in Johannesburg, this novel tells the story of six young men who will do anything—including hustling and conning anyone they can—to survive. Painting an engrossing portrait of the friends, it shows the hopelessness and despair of a group stuck in their position in life, having to compromise themselves to make a living and reach for their dreams.
She Plays With the Darkness Zakes Mda From Booklist: Like all Mda's novels, including Heart of Redness (2002), this contemporary story of southern Africa places contemporary politics in the context of family and community, past and present. The setting here is a mountain village in Lesotho, on the South African border. Radisene is close to his beloved sister, Dikosha, until he leaves for the capital city, Maseru, where be becomes a smart ambulance-chaser, so successful in his machinations that he even sends money back to the village to build his mother a mansion. Dikosha refuses to have anything to do with him. In fact, she lives in her own world of magic and music, closely in touch with the dancers in the local cave paintings that were created by the Bushmen long before the Sotho came there and took the land. Mda's blend of magical realism and the cruel farce of national politics reveals the wildness everywhere. At the heart of the story is the mountain community, never idyllic, bursting with jealousy and spite, yet home through drought, snow, and mist. Hazel Rochman Copyright © American Library Association.
Skyline Patricia Schonstein Pinnock A run-down block of flats in central Cape Town becomes a young girl's gallery of self-discovery in this moving story of the emotional carnage caused by civil wars in Africa. Drug dealers from Nigeria, Zimbabwean wire-workers, immigrants from Rwanda and Sudan, a Mozambican refugee - all escaping the ruins of war in the peace of the new South Africa - bear down on her fragile world, then scoop her into theirs. "Skyline" is an unflinching look at one girl's coming of age in the colourful and violent streets of a city waking up to the rest of Africa.
Smell of Apples, The Mark Behr Set in the twilight of apartheid in South Africa, this haunting novel is narrated by a child who records the political turmoil and social injustice that threaten to destroy his life and community.
Spud John van de Ruit "South Africa’s Catcher in the Rye"; Its 1990. Apartheid is crumbling. Nelson Mandela has just been released from prison. And Spud Milton, thirteen-year-old, prepubescent choirboy extraordinaireis about to start his first year at an elite boys-only boarding school in South Africa. Cursed with embarrassingly dysfunctional parents, a senile granny named Wombat, and a wild obsession for Julia Roberts, Spud has his hands full trying to adapt to his new home. Armed with only his wits and his diary, Spud takes readers of all ages on a rowdy boarding school romp full of illegal midnight swims, raging hormones, and catastrophic holidays that will leave the entire family in total hysterics and thirsty for more. Winner of South Africas Booksellers Choice Award 2006
Syringa Tree Pamela Gien From School Library Journal:–Six-year-old Lizzy is present when her doctor father secretly delivers the baby of her nurse, Salamina, in a white suburb of South Africa in 1963. It becomes Lizzy's special responsibility to keep the infant hidden from the police as well as from the Afrikaner neighbors. As the irrepressible child grows, it becomes more and more difficult to keep Moliseng hidden, and she is sent to the slums of Soweto to live with her grandmother. At the age of 14, she is killed by police as she leads other children in a final defiant and heartrending gesture, proclaiming her freedom. The narrative is told from the point of view of Lizzy, who grapples with the conflicting social, political, and religious values of the times and with her mother's depression. She finds comfort, if not answers, in the distracted attention of her father, the unconditional love of her nurse, and her own Syringa tree with its sweet-smelling blossoms. Readers will be carried away by lyrical descriptions of the sensual beauty of the veld and will experience the heartache of the characters as their lives are torn apart by the violence of the period. The story is as compelling and enlightening as Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country (S & S, 1977), and the writing is evocative of that classic work.–Jackie Gropman, Chantilly Regional Library, Fairfax County, VA From Booklist: *Starred Review* In the tradition of such great southern African writers as Nadine Gordimer and Doris Lessing, this gripping first novel tells the apartheid story through the eyes of a white child who loses her innocence as she confronts the anguish of a black family torn apart by law, separated from each other and from her. Gien was born and raised in Johannesburg, and her acclaimed autobiographical Broadway play with the same title won the 2001 Obie Award. Now her spare, beautiful prose fills in the history and politics at the height of apartheid. But the focus is on the child Elizabeth and her liberal home. Her part-Jewish dad is a surgeon at the black Baragwanath Hospital. Her parents allow her beloved nanny, Salamena, to give birth to a baby girl, Moliseng, born illegally in the white suburb and hidden for years from brutal police raids that would banish the child. When finally Moliseng must leave for the seething Soweto black township, Elizabeth is bereft at the loss of her sister-friend. And what of Moliseng and her broken mother? The small, daily details reveal the savage cruelty of displacement and of servants in the backyard, even with a kind, white "madam." Beyond message, the story builds to the unforgettable climax of the 1976 Soweto uprising, led by children, who are massacred. Hazel Rochman
Thirteen Cents K. Sello An extraordinary and unsparing account of the coming of age of a young street child named Azure trying to make ends meet in this other side of Cape Town. Cape Town, between the postcard mountain and sea, has its own shadow-side lurking in its lap: a place of dislocation and uncertainty, dependence and desperation, destruction and survival, gangsters, pimps, paedophiles, hunger, hope and moments of happiness.
This Day and Age Mike Nicol Book summary: Compared to Faulkner, Grass, Kafka, and Rushdie, after his acclaimed debut The Powers That Be, Nicol now presents a work of tremendous literary and political resonance. His rise foretold by an oracle, a black messiah in the parched South African veld abandons his plague-ridden village to wander the desert, gathering the poor and disenfranchised--only to incur the wrath of the government
To Every Birth Its Blood Mongane Serote "The narrator and protagonist of the first half of the novel, Tsietsi Molope, is a black journalist who is picked up at random by the police, beaten, and emotionally emasculated... The second half turns to a network of characters in Molope's life all related in some way to a resistance effort known as 'the Movement.' Their involvement leads some to accommodation or marginality, others to exile, and still others to torture and death."
Too Late the Phalarope Alan Paton Set in South Africa, as well as its predecessor, Cry, The Beloved Country. And like that earlier novel, Too Late the Phalarope uses the lives of ordinary people to illustrate the inhuman quality of South African apartheid. Racial segregation is odious in concept, impossible in application. To prove it, Paton tells us the story of Pieter, a white policeman, who has an affair with a native girl. He is betrayed and reported, and thus brings shame on himself and his family.
Tsotsi Athol Fugard Athol Fugard is renowned for his relentless explorations of personal and political survival in apartheid South Africa — which include his now classic plays Master Harold and the Boys and The Blood Knot. Fugard has written a single novel, Tsotsi, which director Gavin Hood has made into a feature film that is South Africa's official entry for the 2006 Academy Awards. Set amid the sprawling Johannesburg township of Soweto, where survival is the primary objective, Tsotsi traces six days in the life of a ruthless young gang leader. When we meet Tsotsi, he is a man without a name (tsotsi is Afrikaans for "hoodlum") who has repressed his past and now exists only to stage and execute vicious crimes. When he inadvertently kidnaps a baby, Tsotsi is confronted with memories of his own painful childhood, and this angry young man begins to rediscover his own humanity, dignity, and capacity to love. (also a film)
Waiting For Leila Achmat Dangor
Waiting for the Barbarians J.M. Coetzee a story of oppression told from the side of a member of the oppressing group. The novel tells a fictional story that really is grounded in the realities of South African
history. Not being set in South Africa, Coetzee is able to extend his critique of civilization. The protagonist, a town bureaucrat, wrestles with the societal concepts of barbarianism, civilization, status quo, human rights, violence, exclusion, and inclusion. Waiting for the Barbarians is a thought-provoking critique of society and history as we know it.
Ways of Dying by Zakes Mda Novelist and playwright Zakes Mda's Ways of Dying was a big hit in his native South Africa, where it was even adapted into a jazz opera. Toloki is a Professional Mourner, making a meager living by attending funerals in the violent city where he lives. In his ratty suit he adds "an aura of sorrow and dignity," often serving as peacemaker when fights break out. He encounters Noria, a childhood acquaintance whose son has just died, and the two renew their friendship, finding comfort in reminiscing over the harrowing events of their lives. There are shades of the absurd in Mda's darkly humorous descriptions of the crime, poverty, violence and ethnic unrest that plague the characters in this oddly affecting novel.
World of Can Themba: Selected Writings of the Late Can Themba by Essop Patel, Can Themba
World Unseen, The by Shamim Sarif Product Description: In 1950's South Africa, free-spirited Amina has broken all the rules of her own conventional Indian community, and the new apartheid-led government, by running a café with Jacob her 'coloured' business partner. When she meets Miriam, a young wife and mother, their unexpected attraction pushes Miriam to question the rules that bind her and a chain of events is set in motion that changes both women forever. The World Unseen transports us to a vibrant, colourful world, a world that divides white from black and women from men, but one that might just allow an unexpected love to survive.
When Rain Clouds Gather Bessie Head The poverty-stricken village of Golema Mmidi, in the heart of rural Botswana, offers a haven to the exiles gathered there. Makhaya, a political refugee from South Africa, becomes involved with an English agricultural expert and the villagers as they struggle to modify their traditional farming methods. This piece explores the pressures of modernization and tradition, somehow finding hope for this community's future.
Will to Die Can Themba
You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town Zoe Wicomb Review: Zoë Wicomb’s complex and deeply evocative fiction is among the most distinguished recent works of South African women’s literature. It is also among the only works of fiction to explore the experience of “Coloured” citizens in apartheid-era South Africa, whose mixed heritage traps them, as Bharati Mukherjee wrote in the New York Times, "in the racial crucible of their country."
HISTORIES and REFERENCES
After the Party: Corruption, the ANC and South Africa's Uncertain Future by Andrew Feinstein is the explosive story of the power struggles dominating South African politics and a crucial analysis of the ANC's record in power. Andrew Feinstein, a former ANC member of parliament, recounts how Mandela's successor Thabo Mbeki repressed debate within the party, imposed his AIDS denialism on government, refused to criticize Mugabe's rule in Zimbabwe and stopped an investigation of a multi-billion-dollar arms deal that was tainted by allegations of high-level graft. Feinstein shows how this infamous deal epitomises all that is rotten at the heart of the ANC. Investigating the payment of up to $200 million worth of bribes, he reveals a web of concealment and corruption involving senior politicians and officials, and figures at the very highest level of South African politics. With an insider's account of the events surrounding the contentious trial of South Africa's colourful President, Jacob Zuma, and the ongoing tragedy in Zimbabwe, After the Party has been acclaimed as the most important book on South Africa since the end of apartheid.
Anatomy of a Miracle: The End of Apartheid and the Birth of the New South Africa by Patti Waldmeir From Publishers Weekly In the epic drama of South Africa's "negotiated revolution," the two prime opponents who came together to redesign the country, Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk, are seen here as heroic figures-the one imprisoned for nearly 20 years, studying the nature of the Afrikaners, becoming fluent in their hated language and planning how to peacefully transfer power from the white minority to the black majority; the other a fierce defender of white minority rule, but pressed by the international ostracism that threatened to destroy the country's economy, and looking for a way to salvage it. Waldmeir, a 15-year resident as a correspondent for the Financial Times, encapsulates the struggle and draws wonderful portraits not only of these two men but of the other leading figures on both sides, and of the political dilemmas as they moved toward difficult solutions. Although Mandela attributes greatness to de Klerk for his courage, it is Mandela's own character that dominates this history. Accustomed to power from a childhood in a household on close terms with the tribal chief, he embodies in his magisterial presence what Waldmeir characterizes as the Africans' generosity of spirit and lack of vengefulness, that have made it possible for the white population to accept black rule. She details the steps that moved de Klerk to free him: from the first halfhearted ones, which Mandela refused as compromises, to the five-year negotiations that brought about an agreement to share the power between them. Engrossing in its sweep, this account also describes the obstacles facing the regime: not only problems with unemployment, education and investment but also unresolved demands from powerful tribal chiefs and dissident Afrikaners.
Anatomy of South Africa: Who Holds the Power by Richard Calland: Politics in South Africa is alive and vibrantly so, although the media often fail to reflect this. This book's main aim is to bring that political world to life. It presents a vivid, up-to-date picture of how power works in the new South Africa and who really makes the decisions around here. It is people who make politics, and this is a book about personalities as well as the institutions they belong to. Discussing topics such as the presidency, the cabinet and the directors-general, the opposition parties, the parliamentary committees and the ANC alliance partners, Calland takes the reader along the corridors of power, mixing vivid anecdote with solid research. The result is an accessible yet authoritative account of who runs South Africa, and how, today. The title is borrowed from Anthony Sampson's seminal work about who ran Britain, Anatomy of Britain, which was first published in the early 1960s. Like Sampson before him, Richard Calland has a fly-on-the-wall, insider's approach to the people who control the power that affects us all.
Apartheid: A History Brian Lapping (George Braziller, Inc. Publisher, 1987) From Library Journal This work is exactly what its title says: a history of the development of the peculiar brand of race relations practiced in South Africa. Written by a journalist in a quite readable manner, it complements nicely another recent book, Graham Leach's South Africa: no easy path to peace ( LJ 7/86), in that it is more concerned with historical analysis than current events. In fact, read by itself, the book leaves the reader feeling somewhat let down by the conclusion, which offers no suggestions of what should or may be done to alleviate the South African crisis. Still, the historical analysis, intended for the general public and serving as a companion to a British television series, is well done, providing the important economic, social, as well as political factors which all shaped apartheid. Recommended for general collections as a short introduction to the topic. Paul H. Thomas, Hoover Inst. Lib., Stanford, Cal. Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Biko Donald Woods (New York: H. Holt, 1987) This is the story of white journalist Donald Woods' friendship with Black Consciousness leader, Steve Biko. It captures the story of Steve Biko as a resistance leader and the complications of a friendship across race lines during the Apartheid years. Donald Woods takes the reader through his understanding of Black Consciousness and his family's struggle with the Apartheid government.
Black Lawyers, White Courts: The Soul of South African Law Kenneth S. Broun, Julius Chambers (Ohio: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 1999) Product Description In the struggle against apartheid, one often overlooked group of crusaders was the coterie of black lawyers who overcame the Byzantine system that the government established oftentimes explicitly to block the paths of its black citizens from achieving justice. Now, in their own voices, we have the narratives of many of those lawyers as recounted in a series of oral interviews. Black Lawyers, White Courts is their story and the anti-apartheid story that has before now gone untold. Professor Kenneth Broun conducted interviews with twenty-seven black South African lawyers. They were asked to tell about their lives, including their family backgrounds, education, careers, and their visions for the future. In many instances they also discussed their years in prison or exile, or under house arrest. Most told of both education and careers interrupted because of the ongoing struggle. The story of the professional achievements of black lawyers in South Africa -- indeed their very survival -- provides an example of the triumph of individuals and, ultimately, of the law. Black Lawyers, White Courts is about South Africa, and about black professionals in that country, but the lessons its protagonists teach extend far beyond circumstances, geography, or race.
Black Liberation: A Comparative History of Black Ideologies in the United States and South Africa. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995) The author "has written a companion piece to his earlier work, White Supremacy. While the latter compared and contrasted elements of white racism in the United States and South Africa, this work is a comparative analysis of black responses to that racism."
Citizen and Subject Mahmood Mamdani (Princeton University Press, 1996) Review This theoretically adventurous work by a prominent Ugandan academic attempts to shift away from current paradigms constructed around themes of ethnic identity and the role of civil society. . . . This is an original book that offers a new angle of vision and is likely to stir up lively debate. – Review This theoretically adventurous work by a prominent Ugandan academic attempts to shift away from current paradigms constructed around themes of ethnic identity and the role of civil society... This is an original book that offers a new angle of vision and is likely to stir up lively debate. Foreign Affairs
Complicated War: The Harrowing of Mozambique, A William Finnegan (Univ. of California Press, 1993) An account of the brutal civil war in Mozambique, resulting in the death of one million Mozambicans, which was instigated by the South African Apartheid regime.
Concise History of South Africa, A Robert Ross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) Ross ... writes clearly and vigorously and covers a remarkable range of topics ... the book is attractively produced and liberally illustrated.' The Times Literary Supplement '... it encompasses a greater breadth of issues than any other single text that is currently in print. As such, it provides either an excellent introduction for the advanced higher student, or a brilliant synthesis towards the end of the course, at a point when the student who has mastered the detail should be looking to revisit 'the big picture'. SATH, History Teaching Review
Country of My Skull Ankjie Krog In the year following South Africa's first democratic elections, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established to investigate human rights abuses committed under the apartheid regime. Presided over by God's own diplomat, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the first hearings of the commission were held in April 1996. During the following two years of hearings, South Africans were daily exposed to revelations and public testimony about their traumatic past, and--like the world that looked on--continued to discover that the relationship between truth and reconciliation is far more complex than they had ever imagined. Antjie Krog, a prominent South African poet and journalist, led the South African Broadcasting Corporation team that for two years reported daily on the hearings. Extreme forms of torture, abuse, and state violence were the daily fare of the Truth Commission. Many of those involved with its proceedings, including Krog herself, suffered personal stresses--ill health, mental breakdown, dissolution of relationships--in the face of both the relentless onslaught of the truth and the continuing subterfuges of unrelenting perpetrators. Like the Truth Commission itself, Country of My Skull gives central prominence to the power of the testimony of the victims, combining a journalist's reportage skills with the poet's ability to give voice to stories previously unheard
Country Unmasked, A Alex Boraine This is Alex Boraine's account of South Africa's acclaimed Truth and Reconciliation Commission which was set up after the collapse of the apartheid regime. The TRC had the monumental task not only of uncovering decades of systematic human rights violations, but of doing so in a way that would help a very damaged nation to reconcile and move forward. Boaraine clearly sets out the process leading to the establishment of the TRC, describes the hearings at which victims and perpetrators testified about human rights violations, and considers reactions - inclusding criticisms - to the TRC and its final report. He analyses the key features that contributed to the Commission's success, and gives an honest assessment of some of its mistakes. This is also a personal story, giving insight into the feelings, disappointments, and rewards that the TRC's participants experienced. This book helps to elucidate and answer the many difficlut questions that were crucial to South Africa's TRC, and that need to be addressed by all people who are working with societies in transition.
Crossing The Line: A Year In The Land Of Apartheid William Finnegan (Univ of Calif Press, 1994) This is a deeply personal look at the politics of Apartheid in South Africa by a young white American schoolteacher, who in 1980 landed a job teaching in a high school of "coloured" students on the Cape Flats, outside Cape Town. (Great book!) In one of the best recent books on South Africa, an American vividly recalls his experiences as a white teacher of black students near Cape Town and intersperses more detached descriptions of what was going on under apartheid. Finnegan wanted attentive, disciplined students at the same time that he encouraged in them a radical skepticism, a critical, independent habit of mind, a combative approach to all forms of vested authority. He tried to counsel his students to aim high and work hard, and he often met with hostility. Within that one year, he became acutely aware of how rapidly they were becoming more active in boycotts and protests and forming an essential element of a growing revolutionary movement. He shows how the Afrikaners' hatred for African children has led to bloody massacres and how their fear is an unspoken, unconscious recognition that communal violence is retribution for the countless blacks killed and maimed over the years. A final section describing Finnegan's long hitch-hiking trip with a bitter, white-hating, 18-year-old black woman beautifully shows the apartheid situation in microcosm.
Dateline Soweto: Travels with Black South African Reporters William Finnegan(Univ of Calif Press) Dateline Soweto follows the working lives of a small group of black South African reporters caught in the crossfire between their communities, the police, and their white editors during the great anti-apartheid uprising of the late 1980s.
Election '99: South Africa from Mandela to Mbeki Andrew Reynolds, ed. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999) South Africa's second democratic election of June 2, 1999, was as momentous as the dramatic election of 1994 which installed Nelson Mandela and the ANC as the leaders of the first multiracial government in South Africa's history. This book tells the story of the crucial 1999 general election through the eyes of leading South African and international experts. It summarizes the first five years of democratic government, the parties' election campaigns, the final election results and the future prospects after Mandela.
Faultlines, Journeys Into the New South Africa David Goodman (University of California Press, 1999) A compelling account of South Africa's effort to reinvent itself after the fall of Apartheid, told through the lives of four pairs of South Africans who have experienced apartheid from opposite sides of the racial and political divide. Goodman In April 1994, South Africa held its first ever democratic elections, ushering Nelson Mandela into office as the nation's first black president. What has followed that election, as the country attempts to reinvent a society founded on racism and the indignities of apartheid, is the subject of Fault Lines. "How does a nation deal with the memory of its brutal past?" is perhaps the question that most guides David Goodman, a journalist and longtime observer of South African life. Like the Truth and Reconciliation hearings , the political instrument of South Africa's struggle to come to terms with apartheid-era crimes, the strength of Fault Lines rests on an unflinching yet compassionate quest for truth. Goodman brings all his investigative skills to the task of getting an answer from all sides. He juxtaposes profiles of a victim of police brutality and the former security officer who helped torture him, or a well-off Afrikaner farmer and his neighbor, a black South African forcibly removed from his land. While formal apartheid has ended, Goodman finds "an unfinished revolution," with many citizens still mired in terrible economic and social injustice. Fault Lines is fascinating, if disturbing, reading for anyone interested in understanding the history and present of what the author calls "the most exciting country in the world."
Frontiers: The Epic of South Africa's Creation and the Tragedy of the Xhosa People Noel Mostert (New York: Knopf, 1992) The story of the wars between the Xhosa and White's in the 18th and 19th century.
History of South Africa, A Frank Welsh (New York: Harpers, 1998) A very detailed look at the history of South Africa. Review 'A masterly synthesis of past and present scholarship historical storytelling in the grand narrative tradition' Mail & Guardian 'Sweeping, exhaustive and masterly' Scotland on Sunday 'Excellent... a balanced account of a very complex story' Stephen Fleming, Irish Independent 'Vital to an understanding of modern South Africa' Publishers Weekly 'His assessments are judicious, his opinions fair. Welsh maintains a clear narrative thread through this hugely complex story' Stephen Taylor, New York Times Book Review Frank Welsh's large and magisterial history of South Africa brings out the underlying pattern of the country's development: a complex and uneasy co-existence of races and cultures stretching back over 500 years to which European immigration in the 17th century merely added a new and explosive element; and a country in which change has always been rapid, often violent and frequently stressful. This makes it likely, the author suggests, that the future of South Africa in the post-apartheid era will be no less violent than in its tumultuous past. (Kirkus UK)
Human Being Died that Night: A South African Story of Forgiveness, A Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela An acutely nuanced and original study of a state-sanctioned mass murderer. Not since Dead Man Walking have we seen so provocative a first-person encounter with the human face of evil. Eugene de Kock, the commanding officer of state-sanctioned apartheid death squads, is currently serving 212 years in jail for crimes against humanity. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, who grew up in a black township in South Africa, served as a psychologist on that country's great national experiment in healing, the Truth and Reconcilation Commission. As this book opens, in an act of inescapable, multilayered symbolism and extraordinary psychological courage, Gobodo-Madikizela enters Pretoria's maximum security prison to meet the man called "Prime Evil." What follows is a journey into what it means to be human. Gobodo-Madikizela's experience with and deep empathy for victims of murderous violence, including those killed by de Kock and their families and friends, become clear in arresting scenes set during the TRC hearings, in which both perpetrators and their victims are given voice. The author's profound understanding of the language and memory of violence, and of the searingly complex issues surrounding apology and forgiveness after mass atrocity, will leave a mark on scholarship as well as on our emotional lives. Gobodo-Madikizela's journey with de Kock, during which she allows us to witness the extraordinary awakening of his remorse, brings us to one of the great questions of our time: What does it mean when we discover that the incarnation of evil is as frighteningly human as we are?
Human Rights Watch: Women's Rights Project Violence Against Women in South Africa (New York: Human Rights Watch Africa, 1995)
I Write What I Like Steve Biko (San Francisco: Harper and Row Publishers, 1986) First collection of the writings of the martyred hero of the South African liberation movement. Steve Biko was one of the foremost figures in South Africa's struggle for liberation from the apartheid regime. Murdered by the police when he was only 30, he had already established himself as a leader through his work as a political activist and his writings on Black Consciousness. I Write What I Like was first published in 1978 shortly after his brutal murder in detention.
Jakaranda Time: An Investigator's View of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission Zenzile Khoisan (South Africa: Garib Communications, 2001) An inside story on South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission with an original view of the political machinations before, during and after the TRC hearings. This intelligent, fast paced book takes us on a journey through the drama of actual investigations, going behind the scenes to show how cases were solved. The author interrogates mass murderers and other perpetrators, fearlessly exploring evil. Containing personal insights into victims and perpetrators, Jakaranda Time exposed complicity and cover-ups to the highest level concerning human rights violations in the apartheid era.
Kaffir Boy Mark Mathabane "In Kaffir Boy I have re-created, as best as I can remember, all these experiences. I have sought to paint a portrait of my childhood and youth in Alexandra, a black ghetto of Johannesburg, where I was born and lived for eighteen years, with the hope that the rest of the world will finally understand why apartheid cannot be reformed: it has to be abolished." Kaffir Boy does for apartheid-era South Africa what Richard Wright's Black Boy did for the segregated American South. In stark prose, Mathabane describes his life growing up in a nonwhite ghetto outside Johannesburg--and how he escaped its horrors. Hard work and faith in education played key roles, and Mathabane eventually won a tennis scholarship to an American university. This is not, needless to say, an opportunity afforded to many of the poor blacks who make up most of South Africa's population. And yet Mathabane reveals their troubled world on these pages in a way that only someone who has lived this life can.
Khayelitsha: uMlungu in a Township Steven Otter The gunshots came in rapid succession. There were three of them, followed by screeching tyres and a screaming engine. In a matter of seconds I recalled the conversation I'd had with Mary. She'd been right after all. 'You'll be fine for a few days,' she'd said, 'but after that they'll turn on you. Our cultures are too different. You won't live through it, not just because of the cultural differences, but because of the common crime. Find a home here in the suburbs where you belong.' The three gunshots had been my first, but perhaps for those who'd lived in these streets for years they were only three gunshots among countless others. Who knows? Perhaps three a week, maybe even three a night? Either way, I'd have to get used to them - or leave. Ignoring advice from his white friends, and to the bemusement of his black friends, Steven Otter throws caution to the wind and moves into Khayelitsha, a black township outside Cape Town. The story of his experiences in the uneven spread of shacks and informal housing that are home to more than a million people provides an unusual perspective on and insight into a predominantly Xhosa community and their reaction to an umlungu in their midst.Steven comes to understand his identity as a South African, the true meaning of community and brotherhood, and that some tsotsis are not what they seem. He finds that his preconceived notions of culture and race are called into question and that ubuntu, community and a sense of humour may still thrive alongside poverty and crime.
Long Walk to Freedom; The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela Nelson Mandela (Boston: Bay Back Books) An account of Nelson Mandela's life from his 'country childhood' following his birth on July 18, 1918 to his inauguration as president of South Africa on May 10, 1994. Mandela traces the growth of his understanding of the oppression of black South Africans; his conviction that there was no alternative to armed struggle; his developing belief that all people, black and white, must be free for true freedom; and the effect that his commitment to overthrowing Apartheid had on his family. Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and the first democratically elected president of South Africa, Mandela began his autobiography during the course of his 27 years in prison. The famously taciturn South African president reveals much of himself in Long Walk to Freedom. A good deal of this autobiography was written secretly while Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years on Robben Island by South Africa's apartheid regime. Among the book's interesting revelations is Mandela's ambivalence toward his lifetime of devotion to public works. It cost him two marriages and kept him distant from a family life he might otherwise have cherished. Long Walk to Freedom also discloses a strong and generous spirit that refused to be broken under the most trying circumstances--a spirit in which just about everybody can find something to admire.
Making of Modern South Africa: Conquest, Segregation, and Apartheid Nigel Worden (Blackwell Publishers, 1995: 2nd edition) This book examines the major issues in South Africa's history, from the colonial conquest of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, through the establishment of racism, segregation and Apartheid, to the spirit of reform, resistance and repression of the 1980s and, now, in this new edition, the first democratic elections in April 1994.
Mandela: A Critical Life by Tom Lodge From Publishers Weekly: Nelson Mandela is perhaps the world's most revered living political figure for his role in transforming South Africa into a true democracy. In this illuminating bio, University of Limerick professor Lodge (Politics in South Africa) shows how Mandela's struggle for equality brought him to prominence. Though Mandela is hardly lacking biographers, Lodge makes an important contribution with his argument that Mandela's appeal rests on his ability to personify his political beliefs. Mandela's politics, which emphasize a mix of authority, empathy and respect for all people, are mirrored by his actions and behavior toward everyone he's come in contact with, thereby allowing his personal grace and dignity to be a political gesture. According to Lodge, Mandela's magnanimity serves as a model for a new kind of citizenship, one that embraces difference and the messiness of democracy without sacrificing the gentlemanly restraint Mandela associated with English political institutions. Lodge is careful to give Mandela an assertive role in this process, showing how he cultivated his own life story and his status as a martyr for justice in order to hasten the coming of democracy to his country.
Memory is a Weapon by Don Mattera. Donato Francesco Mattera has been celebrated as a journalist, editor, writer and poet. He is also acknowledged as one of the foremost activists in the struggle for a democratic South Africa, and helped to found both the Union of Black Journalists, the African Writer's Association and the Congress of South African Writers. Born in 1935 in Western Native Township (now Westbury) across the road from Sophiatown, Mattera can lay claim to an intriguingly diverse lineage: his paternal grandfather was Italian, and he has Tswana, Khoi-Khoi and Xhosa blood in his veins. Yet diversity was hardly being celebrated at that time. In one of apartheid's most infamous actions, the vibrant multicultural Sophiatown was destroyed in 1955 and replaced with the white suburb of Triomf, and the wrenching displacement, can be felt in Mattera's writing. The story of his life in Sophiatown as told in this essay is intricate. Covering Mattera's teenage years from 1948 to 1962 when Sophiatown was bulldozed out of existence, it weaves together both his personal experience and political development. In telling the story of his life as a 'coloured' teenager, Mattera takes on the ambitious goal of making us recapture the crucial events of the 1950s in Sophiatown, one of the most important decades in the history of black political struggles in South Africa.
My Traitor's Heart by Rian Malan (Molly--Fascinating look into stories that are not often told. One of the most compelling books I have read about SA ever.) Like many white South Africans of his generation, Rian Malan fled his country to dodge the draft. He felt incredibly guilty for this act, but would have felt equally guilty for not doing it: "I ran because I wouldn't carry a gun for apartheid, and because I wouldn't carry a gun against it." Malan, the product of a well-known Afrikaner family, returned to South Africa and produced My Traitor's Heart, which explores the literal and figurative brutalities of apartheid. Death is a constant presence on these pages, and the narrative is driven by Malan's criminal reportage. This acclaimed book intends to illuminate South Africa's poisonous race relations under apartheid, and few books do it this well.
No Future Without Forgiveness Archbishop Desmond Tutu (Doubleday, 1999) A look at the TRC and the need of forgiveness for a people to continue to exist as a nation. A beautiful and sad look at the heartbreak and pain experienced by the people of SA. From Publishers Weekly This insightful book about South Africa's healing process is no simple feel-good tale. In 1995, Tutu was looking forward to a well-earned retirement from his role as Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town. He had given his life to the antiapartheid struggle and had spoken the truth to those in power so many times that, in 1984, he received the Nobel Peace Prize. Still, in 1996, President Mandela and others prevailed upon him to postpone retirement's pleasures to give South Africa one more thing: his leadership as chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Tutu speaks frankly of this call, of the struggle that preceded it and of the betrayals and jubilations of this unique commission. The TRC's work was unprecedented not only in its emphasis on restorative over retributive justice but in the spirituality that permeated its work, the bulk of which constituted hearings from the "victims" and "perpetrators" of apartheid. Ubuntu, Tutu explains, is the African expression that was at the heart of the TRC's labors. Meaning something like "a person is a person through other people," ubuntu sums up Tutu's philosophical framework for addressing apartheid's hard truths and beginning the reconciliation process necessary to move beyond apartheid's legacy. Despite the occasional factual inconsistency and some clich?s (the book seems hastily written), Tutu's wisdom and experience come through. Human rights, he affirms, cannot stand without ubuntu's deeper foundation; the future cannot be without forgiveness.
Number, The - Jonny Steinberg On 9 June 2003, a 43-year-old coloured man named Magadien Wentzel walked out of Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town. Behind him lay a lifelong career in the 28s, South Africa’s oldest and most reviled prison gang, for decades rumoured to have specialised in robbery and rape. In front of him lay the prospect of a law-abiding future, and life in a household of eight adults and six children, none of whom earned a living.
Author Jonny Steinberg met Wentzel in prison in the dying months of 2002. By the time Wentzel was released, he and Steinberg had spent more than 50 hours discussing his life experiences. The Number is an account of their conversations and of Steinberg’s journeys to the places and people of Wentzel’s past. It is a tale of modern South Africa’s historic events seen through the eyes of the country’s underclass. The book is an account of memory and identity, of Wentzel’s project to make some sense of his bewildering past and something worthy of his future.
Old Wrongs, New Right: Student Views of the New South Africa edited by Dan Connell A series of candid close-ups of South Africa s invigorating but unfinished journey from apartheid to democracy. The reporters are students from the Americas, steeped in idealism but quick to spot backsliding. Their vantage point provides a freshness that is absent from the seasoned, often cynical, professionals who usually mediate our view of this daunting experiment in social transformation. The stories focus on day-to-day struggles to attain the promise of South Africa s visionary Constitution, which not only guarantees every citizen equality and full participation in the political process, but also rights to housing, health care, education, personal security, and a safe environment for future generations. What has so far been achieved, the student reporters asked? What or who holds back change? Who is propelling the society ahead, and why does so much remain to be done? As journalists, the students sought answers not in pious pronouncements or paper pledges but in the lives of those now carrying apartheid s persistent legacy. Old Wrongs, New Rights gives voice to South Africans deeply felt aspirations, coupled with their intense frustration at the sluggish pace of change. It also tracks the ways in which the experience transformed the observers.
Other Side of History, The Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert was a Member of Parliament during the Apartheid regime. He led the official opposition, the Progressive Federal Party (PFP), in the House Assembly from 1979 to 1986. He then left parliament but continued to engage in the political arena. He organized the Dakar Conference and other dialogues about the Apartheid government and pending transition of power to the ANC. Drawing on these experiences, he offers insight into the transition process in South Africa. In The Other Side of History, Slabbert acknowledges that history will always have a bias and such biases can have grave, concrete consequences in the future. Though he does not wish to propagate his own memory of the transition process as fact, he attempts to use his experiences to highlight the myths surrounding the process that prevail today.
Outcast Cape Town John Western (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966) Social geographer John Western analyzes the urban spatial planning of the 1950 Group Areas Act that achieved the racial separatism of apartheid. His new prologue for the paperback edition assesses the changes to be expected from the new government and the obstacles to significant change.
Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: Legitimizing the Post-Apartheid State by Richard A. Wilson "It is impossible in this space to do justice to Wilson's subtle, complex and largely convincing book. Just about the best thing written on the TRC so far; it is deeply analytical yet broad in scope. Wilson offers us engaging chapters on the TRC's political life....This is a remarkable book." Journal of African Histor "This provocative study deepens our understanding of post-aparthied South Africa and the use of human rights discourse." The African Sun Times "Focusing on attitudes toward reconciliation, retribution, and vengeance, the author sees human rights in South Africa essentially as legal instruments that serve the purposes of compromise rather than the concept of justice....Wilson's analysis raises basic questions about the long-term efficacy of truth commissions and is useful for comparative purposes." The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was set up to deal with the human rights violations of apartheid. However, the TRC's restorative justice approach did not always serve the needs of communities at a local level. Based on extended anthropological fieldwork, this book illustrates the impact of the TRC in urban African communities in Johannesburg. It argues that the TRC had little effect on popular ideas of justice as retribution. This provocative study deepens our understanding of post-apartheid South Africa and the use of human rights discourse.
Rainbow People of God Desmond TuTu (New York: Doubleday, 1994) Desmond Tutu, the leader of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Archbishop of Cape Town, gives readers the historical highlights of his extraordinary leadership in the anti-apartheid movement.
Reconciliation:The Ubuntu Theology of Desmond Tutu Michael Battle The underlying principle of Archbishop Tutu's Christian ethics is the African notion of "ubuntu." Ubuntu is a difficult word to translate, but it connotes community, with the understanding that it's impossible to isolate persons from community, that there's an organic relationship between all people such that when we see another, we should recognize (an important word for Tutu) ourselves and the God in whose image all people are made. Interdependence and reciprocity, not independence and self-sufficiency, are the keys here. As Tutu magnificently says, "A self-sufficient human being is subhuman. I have gifts that you do not have, so consequently, I am unique--you have gifts that I do not have, so you are unique. God has made us so that we will need each other. We are made for a delicate network of interdependence." (p. 35) Michael Battle, an African-American theologian who lived and worked for a while in South Africa, has written a comprehensive and lucid account of Tutu's understanding of ubuntu. He carefully explores its ethical, theological, and spiritual implications for Tutu and, by association, for contemporary Christianity. Battle is generous in his quotes from Tutu, but he also provides insightful commentary on Tutu's words. Strongly advised for anyone wishing to explore Christian social ethics.
Slovo: The Unfinished Autobiography Joe Slovo (New York: Ocean Press, 1997) A revealing and highly entertaining autobiography of one of the key figures of South Africa's African National Congress. As an immigrant, a Jew, a communist, a guerrilla fighter and political strategist - and white - few public figures in South Africa were as demonized by the apartheid government as Joe Slovo.
Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter, The by Albie Sachs On April 7, 1988, Albie Sachs, an activist South African lawyer and a leading member of the ANC, was car-bombed in Maputo, capital of Mozambique, by agents of South Africa's security forces. His right arm was blown off and he lost the sight of one eye. This intimate and moving account of his recovery records the gradual recuperation of his broken body, his complex interaction with health professionals, the importance of touch and sensuality, and his triumphant reentry into the world. It also captures the spirit of a remarkable man: his enormous optimism, his commitment to social justice, and his joyous wonder at the life that surrounds him. In a new epilogue, Sachs gives a gripping insider's view of the major public events of the last decade--the election of Nelson Mandela, the formation of the Constitutional Court and Sachs's appointment as judge, and his own role with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC: Second Edition by William Mervin Gumede Review: 'A timely, well-written and important book' The Economist 'I happened to be in South Africa when William Gumede's book first came out and watched as it inspired apoplectic fits of rage (and clandestine delight...) at the highest reaches of the ANC government. Finally the real story of how Thabo Mbeki had betrayed the founding principles of the Party was being told -- and the person shining the flashlight into the backrooms was one of the country's most respected investigative journalists and a third generation ANC loyalist. This is a definitive account of how one of the greatest liberation struggles of our time failed millions of people in whose name it fought, told with revelatory research, a cool head and expert storytelling'- Naomi Klein, author "No Logo" in The Guardian
They're Burning the Churches by Patrick Noonan is a meticulously written and moving report of the groundbreaking events that dramatically accelerated the downfall of the apartheid movement, this new edition focuses on a particularly violent period in South Africa’s tumultuous history. Clearly and without bias, this book discusses the Sharpeville Six Trial, the Delmas Treason Trial, the 1984 uprising that led to international sanctions against South Africa, the first-ever army invasions of the Vaal townships, and the still controversial Boipatong massacre. With firsthand accounts—including those from formerly despised councillors—this record clarifies many misconceptions regarding the important events that were instrumental in bringing down the apartheid regime.
Toxic Mix: What's Wrong with SAs Schools and How to Fix Them Graeme Bloch Shocking findings show that South African learners are consistently underachieving, counting not only amongst the worst in the world, but often amongst the worst in Africa. Education policy expert Graeme Bloch states that 60-80% of our schools are dysfunctional. They produce barely literate and numerate learners and Bloch believes the country is headed for a national education crisis. He identifies the toxic mix of factors that are causing this crisis, taking government and teachers to task for not performing as they should and highlighting the socio-economic challenges that many learners face. But Bloch doesn’t leave it at that – he offers solutions to turn the situation around. He gives anecdotal evidence of several schools and individual teachers who are getting it right, leaving the reader with hope for the future
Thin Blue: The Unwritten Rules of South African Policing Jonny Steinberg In this provocative new book, Steinberg argues that policing in crowded urban space is like theatre. Only here, the audience writes the script, and if the police don't perform the right lines, the spectators throw them off the stage. Several months before they exploded into xenophobic violence, Jonny Steinberg travelled the streets of Alexandra, Reiger Park and other Johannesburg townships with police patrols. His mission was to discover the unwritten rules of engagement emerging between South Africa's citizens and its new police force.
Three-letter Plague: A Young Man's Journey Through a Great Epidemic - Jonny Steinberg Paperback (2010) In the book, Steinberg befriends Sizwe, a young local man who runs a spaza shop who refuses to be tested for Aids despite the existence of a well-run testing and anti-retroviral programme nearby. It is this apparent illogic that becomes the key to understanding the dynamics that thread their way through a complex and traditional rural community. As Steinberg grapples to get closer to finding answers that remain maddeningly just out of reach, he realizes that he must look within himself to unravel certain riddles.
Unfinished Business - South Africa, Apartheid and Truth Terry Bell with Dumisa Ntsebeza (New York: Verso, 2003) A look at the failures and successes of the TRC. Dumisa was one of the chief investigators involved with the TRC. Much talks to his own personal experience with his involvement in the anti-apartheid movement. It is ultimately a critical look at the shortcomings of the TRC in dealing with the past, and the political compromises.
Unbreakable Thread: Non-Racialism in South Africa ( The) Julie Frederikse (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991)
Vanishing Cultures of South Africa Peter Magubane (Rizoli, 1998) This richly illustrated book is a fascinating look at the various traditional black cultures in South Africa. The photographer spent time with different tribal peoples, experiencing their day-to-day lives. His magnificent photographs allow us a glimpse into these vanishing worlds as they adapt to modern, urban influences. For travellers interested in meeting people and armchair anthropologists, this is an indispensable read.
Zulu Woman: The Life Story of Christina Sibiya The Women Writing Africa Series, Rebecca Hourwich Reyher, Liz Gunner, Marcia Wright (Feminist Press, 1999) A preface by Ruth Benedict adds some anthropological prestige to a book that is chiefly a personal story, in personal terms, of Christina Sibiya, first wife of-Solomon, King of the Zulus. Christian in her rearing, resenting her father's polygamy, Christina was reluctant to accept the courtship of King Solomon. And she had been married but two months and pregnant, when she found him launched on a path of debauchery, taking other wives and concubines, heading to dissolute ways and disease. From jealousy and humiliation she turned to indifference, eventually rebelling and finding freedom in divorce. This is intended as an exposure of "what goes on in the heart and mind of a native woman" - but should not be judged on scientific grounds. (Kirkus Reviews) In 1934, American writer Rebecca Hourwich Reyher recorded the remarkable life story of Christina Sibiya, the first of sixty-five wives of the uncrowned king of the Zulus. What Reyher faithfully recorded - and then crafted into a moving narrative - is the riveting story of a South African woman who entered life among the Zulu royal family and then, after enduring psychic and physical abuse, found the courage to leave. In 1915, fifteen-year-old Christina Sibiya leaves teaching at a mission school to become the first wife of Solomon ka Dinuzulu. While at the royal household, Sibiya successfully adjusts to the expectations of her new position: finding her place among the other wives, and negotiating Zulu and Christian tradition. The royal headquarters, however, becomes increasingly plagued by diviseness, dissolution, and ill health. After a series of hardships, climaxing in a beating by Solomon, Sibiya, at the age of twenty-eight, escapes to Durban. Although pursued by Solomon's representative, Sibiya successfully resists Solomon's authority by testifying first in a European magistrate's court and then at the royal headquarters that her marriage was invalid. First published in 1948, Zulu Woman is placed in new context by an introduction and afterword which consider the book's relationship to other African literature and oral history, attend to questions of power and authorship, and draw upon newly available archival materials.
Zuma: A Biography Jeremy Gordin (Paperback - 2009) Zuma has been at the epicenter of South African politics, and his life has spilt almost daily onto the pages of South Africa's newspapers. Often embattled, always controversial, Zuma rose to take control of the ANC in Polokwane last year, unseating President Thabo Mbeki. Now, he has become the next president of South Africa. In this unauthorized biography, veteran journalist Jeremy Gordin takes the reader beyond the daily and weekly reporting to capture something of the man: his ambitions; the political rollercoaster he has been on; his travails in his quest to be the next president of South Africa. In addition, award-winning writer Gordin covers Zuma's early life as a herd boy, his adult life as a member of the ANC, his incarceration on Robben Island, his time in exile, and the transitional years of the early 1990s. But the main focus remains on the last seven or eight years Zuma's alleged corruption in the Arms Deal, his trial for rape, and his rise to power. This book promises to be immensely readable and, like its subject, highly controversial..
ECONOMIC ANALYSES
Disabling Globalization: Places of Power in Post-Apartheid South Africa Gillian Hart From the Inside Flap "An unequivocally excellent work of scholarship that makes significant theoretical and empirical contributions to the understanding of 'globalization' and the working of contemporary neo-liberal capitalism. Hart is especially innovative in placing the study of Taiwanese industrialists in South Africa in relation to both the agrarian history of Taiwan and China, and the way that Taiwanese overseas firms have operated in places other than South Africa. It is a very rare combination of talents and knowledge that makes such a study possible."--James Ferguson, author of Expectations of Modernity From the Back Cover"An unequivocally excellent work of scholarship that makes significant theoretical and empirical contributions to the understanding of 'globalization' and the working of contemporary neo-liberal capitalism. Hart is especially innovative in placing the study of Taiwanese industrialists in South Africa in relation to both the agrarian history of Taiwan and China, and the way that Taiwanese overseas firms have operated in places other than South Africa. It is a very rare combination of talents and knowledge that makes such a study possible."-James Ferguson, author of Expectations of Modernity
South Africa Limits to Change: The Political Economy of Transformation(Revised Edition) Hein Marais This is an important and original book, scholarly, but at the same time readable. It is better, in my view, that any recent book on the political economy of South Africa. John Sender, SOAS, University of London
--> Global Exchange: http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/africa/southafrica/books.html
