There is the high veld, the middle veld, the low veld, the bush veld, and now thoughts from the thorn veld,
Ian Macqueen, Black Consciousness and Progressive Movements under Apartheid (Pietermaritzburg: UKZN Press, 2018) IN popular perception Black Consciousness (BC) is often portrayed as a breakaway, isolationist tendency; a mirror image of apartheid promoting the interests […]
Anneliese Burgess, Heist: South Africa’s Cash-in-Transit Epidemic Uncovered (Cape Town: Penguin, 2018) VIOLENT crime is a long-standing South African tradition and at the top of the hierarchy are the gangsters who hijack cash-in-transit vehicles. These […]
Jonathan Jansen, As by Fire: The End of the South African University (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2017) UNIVERSITIES are fragile institutions. They require calm and as little change and disruption as possible to enable their primary […]
Mike Procter and Lungani Zama, Caught in the Middle: The Autobiography of Mike Procter (Cape Town: Don Nelson, 2017) A FEROCIOUSLY fast bowler who could turn to off spin, a dominating and entertaining middle order batsman, […]
Terry Shakinovsky and Sharon Cort with Lauren Segal, The Knock on the Door: The Story of the Detainees’ Parents Support Committee (Johannesburg: Picador Africa, 2018) DURING the 1980s, in its desperate attempt to delay liberation, […]
Ray Hartley, The Big Fix: How South Africa Stole the 2010 World Cup (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2016) THE RUN-UP to the 2010 FIFA World Cup held in South Africa lasted five years. It was a remarkably […]
Millard W. Arnold (ed.), The Testimony of Steve Biko and No Fears Expressed: Quotes from Steve Biko (Picador Africa) APARTHEID was a theatre of both fear and farce. Steve Biko, by then a banned person, […]
John le Carré, A Legacy of Spies (Penguin Random House) IN the novel that first made John le Carré’s name, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Alec Leamas and Elizabeth Gold are shot […]
Jacques Pauw, The President’s Keepers: Those Keeping Zuma in Power and out of Prison (Tafelberg) HE became South Africa’s president in 2009 already deeply compromised by the arms deal. Subsequently Jacob Zuma has behaved like […]
Mark SHAW, Hitmen for Hire: Exposing South Africa’s Underworld (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2017) WANT someone rubbed out? It could cost you as little as R10 000 in a society in which extreme violence is commonplace […]