South African Literature

Hope Anderson is at a crossroads. After six years with her boyfriend, she is no longer sure what she wants, and when her father becomes ill she heads to her family's cottage at Sunset Beach in North Carolina to make some difficult decisions. Tru Walls has been summoned across an ocean from where he was born and raised in Zimbabwe by a letter from a man claiming to be his father. In journeying to Sunset Beach, Tru hopes to unravel the mystery surrounding his mother's life, but the letter will lead him in an unexpected direction.

Mr. Field wants a new life, a life cleansed of the old one’s disappointments. A concert pianist, his career is upended when the train he is travelling on crashes. On a whim, he buys a house that he hopes will make him happy. But as time passes, the house - which Le Corbusier designed as "a machine for living" - begins to have a disturbing effect on Mr. Field. When his wife inexplicably leaves him, Mr. Field can barely summon the will to search for her. Alone in the decaying house, he finds himself unglued from reality and possessed by a longing for a perverse kind of intimacy.

Self-educated and brown skinned, Cassie works full time in her grandmother's laundry in rural Mississippi. Illiterate and white, Judith falls for "colored music" and dreams of life as a big-city radio star. These teenage girls are half-sisters. And when they catch wind of their wayward father's inheritance coming down in Virginia, they hitch their hopes on a road trip together to claim what's rightly theirs. In an old junk car, with a frying pan, a ham, and a few dollars hidden in a shoe, they set off through the Deep South of the 1950s.

A poacher vanishes into thin air, defying logic and baffling ace tracker Mia Greenaway. Meanwhile Captain Sannie van Rensburg, still reeling from a personal tragedy, is investigating the disappearance of two young girls who locals fear have been abducted for use in sinister traditional medicine practices. But poachers are also employing witchcraft, paying healers for potions they believe will make them invisible and bulletproof.

When Christine Courtenay began penning her own life story in lockdown last year, she found herself increasingly drawn into the story of her late husband and bestselling author Bryce Courtenay. The manuscript that evolved is the memoir his listeners have longed for, and is the first biographical work of one of Australia's most beloved authors. Bryce Courtenay: Storyteller is a personal memoir and tribute, featuring untold stories, original insights, extracts from his personal letters and previously unpublished photographs - from the woman who knew and loved him dearly.

Lil Chris is just nineteen when he arrives at Angola as an AU—an admitting unit, a fresh fish, a new 'vict. He's got a life sentence with no chance of parole, but he's also got a clear mind and sharp awareness—one that picks up quickly on the details of the system, his fellow inmates, and what he can do to claim a place at the top. When he meets Rise, a mature inmate who's already spent years in the system, Lil Chris learns to find his way in a system bent on repressing every means he has to express himself.

Saesha is being raised as a Hindu girl in a patriarchal society during apartheid in the outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa. She has no idea that apartheid even exists. Where do black South Africans live at night? Why does her dad take them through a separate entrance when they enter theme parks and picnic spots? These are just split second wonders that enter her mind when faced with it in the present.

Diana Murray's life is #goals. Home might not be perfect but her Instagram can be. After only a few months on YouTube, her subscriber count is soaring, she's getting recognized in public, and the absolutely gorgeous @ErichLang is sliding into her DMs. How can she be anything but #happy? But while Diana and her friends are living it up with Cape Town's favorite social media celebs, she sees something she wishes she hadn't—something that could get you #cancelled for good.

When the Smoke Cleared chronicles how resilience and conviction took hold in one woman to overcome the circumstances of her turbulent childhood and adolescence. A novel that paints a vivid and intimate portrait of an African American Southern family in a small rural town filled with segregation and cultural racism.

New South Africa emerged peacefully and full of hope after Apartheid. Yet life is looking desperate for one white family, struggling to survive. Martha, Hendrik and their daughter Magda are six months behind with their rent when they are finally asked to vacate their house in the quiet town of Wolseley. Selling their remaining things, they head to Cape Town, their last chance.

African-American reverend Joshua Clay welcomes the chance to minister in South Africa. Once there, however, he is caught between others' expectations and his own beliefs. Turning to God, Joshua must gather the strength to search for answers and bring some peace to a grief-stricken land.

Growing up as a Black girl in America, Deborah Mouton felt alienated from the stories she learned in class. She yearned for stories she felt connected to—true ones of course—but also fables and mythologies that could help explain both the world and her place in it. What she encountered was almost always written by white writers who prospered in a time when human beings were treated as chattel, such as the Greek and Roman myths, which felt as dusty and foreign as ancient ruins. When she sought myths written by Black authors, they were rooted too far in the past, a continent away.

Author Lawrence Reid Bechtel has captured the story of Isaac Granger, a slave from Thomas Jefferson's plantation as told through the eyes of amateur historian Reverend Charles Campbell. In 1852, after much searching through the Black districts of Petersburg, Virginia, the amateur historian Charles Campbell finally located Isaac Granger, a former slave of the late Thomas Jefferson.

From groundbreaking and award-winning poet Koleka Putuma comes an empowering and uplifting collection of poems about figuring out who you are and embracing it. With words to affirm, this is the ideal companion to hold your hand while you navigate all the big questions, discoveries and transitions of young adulthood.

Tales from the Eastern Cape, gathered in 1886.

Katrina Hunt is a journalist with a secret. From her early days growing up in the poverty of a trailer park, she has been able to detect the sour notes of corruption. And she's never wrong. She turns her talent to the work of sniffing out the unprincipled and the amoral in positions of privilege and power. On the far side of the world, a morally ambiguous scientist working in the unfolding field of genetic profiling has cracked an algorithm that will forever change law-enforcement. His new 'scan' will be able to detect a person's genetic propensity for wrongdoing, even before they act.

Frightened that their baby sister, Dineo, will die, 13-year-old Naledi and her younger brother, Tiro, run away from their grandmother to Johannesburg to find their mother, who works there as a maid. Their journey illustrates at every turn the grim realities of apartheid - the pass laws, bantustans, racism, the breakdown of family life. The opulence of the white 'Madam’s' house contrasts starkly with the reality that Naledi and Tiro face - that their baby sister is suffering from starvation, not an incurable disease.

June, 1957. One afternoon, in the backwater town of Sutton, a young black farmer by the name of Tucker Caliban matter-of-factly throws salt on his field, shoots his horse and livestock, sets fire to his house and departs the southern state. And thereafter, the entire African-American population leave with him. The reaction that follows is told across a dozen chapters, each from the perspective of a different white townsperson. These are boys, girls, men and women, either liberal or conservative, bigoted or sympathetic - yet all of whom are grappling with this spontaneous, collective rejection of subordination.

Prince Myers came from Nawlins to ATL to take over the game. His rise was fast and he enjoyed all the luxuries of his hustle, including the fly chick on his arm. But his reign is short lived. Now he is in prison on a bogus murder conviction and everything he had is gone, including his woman. Beautiful and ambitious Lieutenant Nicole Wright is the fantasy of every convict at Georgia State Prison where she works.

Set against the backdrop of the antebellum South, this compelling work of historical fiction follows the harrowing journey of a young man, stolen from his family and thrust into the merciless world of slavery. The story unfolds with the abduction of IDI, a bright and resourceful young man who is cruelly torn from his family and homeland. His journey takes him to the American South, where he is subjected to the dehumanizing horrors of servitude. Driven by an unshakable determination to regain his freedom, David befriends a group of fellow slaves who share his longing for escape.