there is the high veld, the middle veld, the low veld, the bush veld, and now thoughts from the thorn veld,
Richard Conyngham, All Rise: Resistance and Rebellion in South Africa, 1910‒1948: A Graphic History (Johannesburg: Jacana, 2021) THIS illustrated history is largely inspired by files found in the basement archives of the Supreme Court of […]
Ebbe Dommisse, Fortunes: The Rise and Rise of Afrikaner Tycoons (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2021) TWO dozen tycoons are the central characters of Ebbe Dommisse’s book; just one, unsurprisingly, a woman. Among these Afrikaans-speakers none is […]
Qaanitah Hunter, Kaveel Singh and Jeff Wicks. Eight Days in July: Inside the Zuma Unrest that Set South Africa Alight (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2021) ON Monday and Tuesday 12 and 13 July this year our […]
Athol Williams, Deep Collusion: Bain and the Capture of South Africa (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2021) IT’S not unusual for South African whistleblowers to go into hiding overseas. The two computer technicians who uncovered the Gupta […]
Themba Maseko, For my Country: Why I Blew the Whistle on Zuma and the Guptas (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2021) THIS might well have been the routine story of a young struggle activist who graduated to […]
Gwen Lister, Comrade Editor: On Life, Journalism and the Birth of Namibia (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2021) ON 11 June 1974 a small group of anti-apartheid Cape Town students disrupted a Southern Universities versus British Lions […]
Trevor Ngwane, Amakomiti: Grassroots Democracy in South African Shack Settlements (Johannesburg: Jacana, 2021) HAVING visited 46 informal settlements to discover that three quarters have popular committees, and just one no committee at all, Trevor Ngwane […]
Michela Wrong, Do Not Disturb: The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad (London: Fourth Estate, 2021) The title of this substantial book is a double entendre. It uses the words […]
John R. Schlapobersky, When They Came for Me: The Hidden Diary of an Apartheid Prisoner (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2021) IN John Schlapobersky’s case they came on Friday 13 June 1969 in the middle of a […]
Tyrone August, Dennis Brutus: The South African Years (Cape Town: BestRed, 2020) ALTHOUGH renowned as a poet, political activist, journalist and teacher, with a life story that is relatively well-known, Dennis Brutus has proved an […]