There is the high veld, the middle veld, the low veld, the bush veld, and now thoughts from the thorn veld,
Anton Harber, So, for the Record: Behind the Headlines in an Era of State Capture (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2020) WHEN the nation’s largest and most influential paper publishes a series of stories over several years […]
Bronwyn Davids, Lansdowne Dearest: My Family’s Story of Forced Removals (Cape Town: Kwela Books, 2020) THERE has been much contestation over the definition and identity of the South African coloured community. Bronwyn Davids brings her […]
Hermann Giliomee, The Afrikaners: A Concise History (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2020) THERE is much to be said for concise books: many modern publications are far too long. This one is the progeny of an 18-hour […]
Mandy Wiener, The Whistleblowers (Johannesburg: Macmillan, 2020) MANDY Wiener’s book needs no sub-title; and it is a scathing indictment of the state of South Africa. It begins with a lament for whistleblowers amid doubt about […]
R.W. Johnson, Foreign Native: An African Journey (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2020) LIBERAL social democrat is Bill Johnson’s self-description; and in this world of rampant and rabid populist nationalism his thinking should be highly prized. He […]
Richard Steyn, Seven Votes: How WWII Changed South Africa Forever (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2020) SOUTH Africa’s decision to go to war against Germany on 6 September 1939 was made a year after the government had […]
Riaan de Villiers and Jan-Ad Stemmet, Prisoner 913: The Release of Nelson Mandela (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2020) EVEN trees in the garden of Nelson Mandela’s cottage at Victor Verster Prison were bugged. Only one inside […]
Jonathan Lichtenstein, The Berlin Shadow: Living with the Ghosts of the Kindertransport (London: Scribner, 2020) HANS Eugen Lichtenstein, aged 12, arrived alone from Berlin at London’s Liverpool Street station in mid-1939, one of ten thousand […]
Michael Schmidt, Death Flight: Apartheid’s Secret Doctrine of Disappearance (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2020) PARKED at an East Rand airport you may find a Piper Seneca II, registered ZS-KFG. This is the aircraft used in the […]
Greg Ardé, War Party: How the ANC’s Political Killings are Breaking South Africa (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2020) ORGANISED crime resorts readily to violence; so it is no surprise that the ANC, which Durban-based journalist Greg […]