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The Promise

The Promise
  • Author(s): Damon Galgut
  • Location(s): Pretoria
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): 20th Century

The Promise charts the crash and burn of a white South African family, living on a farm outside Pretoria. The Swarts are gathering for Ma’s funeral. The younger generation, Anton and Amor, detest everything the family stand for —...

An Unusual Grief

An Unusual Grief
  • Author(s): Yewande Omotoso
  • Location(s): Gauteng, Johannesburg
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): Contemporary

How do you get to know your daughter when she is dead? This is the question that haunts Mojisola as she grapples with the sudden loss of her daughter, Yinka, and the unresolved fractures in their relationship. Mojisola is...

Cry, The Beloved Country

Cry, The Beloved Country
  • Author(s): Alan Paton
  • Location(s): Johannesburg
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): Mid 20th Century

Many-layered messages of loss and faith, murder, redemption, and the Reverend Kumalo and his love for his people. A true classic.

A Dry White Season

A Dry White Season
  • Author(s): André Brink
  • Location(s): Johannesburg
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): Second half of the 20th Century

Ben du Toit teaches history and geography in Johannesburg, South Africa. It is the period of the height of the youth riots in the township of Soweto. He is an ordinary, decent, harmless man, unremarkable in every way –...

No Turning Back

No Turning Back
  • Author(s): Beverley Naidoo
  • Location(s): Johannesburg
  • Genre(s): Fiction, Young Adult
  • Era(s): 1990s

Grade 4-8. Sipho’s idyllic country life ends when his nurturing grandmother dies and he returns to his mother’s shack. Shocked to discover he now has a stepfather who is brutal and abusive, Sipho lasts for six months before running...

Portrait with Keys

Portrait with Keys
  • Author(s): Ivan Vladislavic
  • Location(s): Johannesburg
  • Genre(s): Travelogue
  • Era(s): Modern

(The Author)…..has evidently spent much of his time walking round and round, up and down, above and under, in and out of the city’s not very beautiful streets…..He needs no cathedrals for his art, no victorious monuments. To him...

Random Violence

Random Violence
  • Author(s): Jassy Mackenzie
  • Location(s): Johannesburg
  • Genre(s): Crime
  • Era(s): Modern

In Johannesburg prosperous whites live in gated communities: when they exit their cars to open the gates, car-jackings are common. But seldom is the victim killed, much less shot twice, like Annette Botha. Piet Botha, the husband of the...

Saturdays are Gold

Saturdays are Gold
  • Author(s): Pierre Van Rooyen
  • Location(s): Johannesburg
  • Genre(s): Fiction
  • Era(s): 1940s

Two children growing up in 1940s South Africa are told to stay away from lonely places because there is a child abductor on the loose. What could possibly go wrong? Young Maudie doesn’t realise she has a ‘gift’ that...

Smokescreen

Smokescreen
  • Author(s): Dick Francis
  • Location(s): Johannesburg, Kruger National Park
  • Genre(s): Thriller
  • Era(s): 1970s

Edward Lincoln had scaled the Himalayas, survived deadly car chases, defeated scores of assassins. As a film action man he’d even suffered stoically at the hands of sadistic directors. After finishing his latest film, he’s asked to visit South...

Triomf

Triomf
  • Author(s): Marlene van Niekerk
  • Location(s): Johannesburg

Marlene van Niekerk’s multi-award winning novel “Triomf” tells the story of the four residents of 127 Martha Street in the then ‘poor white’ suburb of Triomf, built on the ruins of old Sophiatown, once the vibrant and notorious centre...

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