Africa's best books and more...
I currently live in Seoul, South Korea and work as an English teacher. Despite the steep hills I had to climb, I rediscovered my love of writing, and my book is out there. My book is titled I See The Pain in Your Eyes. The book was published in June 2012. It is about a single mother who is tormented by the behavior of her 16 year old son.
Diary of a Bad Year is an all encompassing read, a novel full of ideas, ideas that are thought-provoking and interesting. Published in 2008 by Viking Penguin, it offers a departure from the novel format that many readers are used to. The usual reading of a novel page-by-page does not apply here because the reader is presented with sentences that run across pages even mid-way into completing a page.
Fiction does not always enhance or deepen our understanding of complex realities of time and place. In his novel, The Madonna of Excelsior, set in his native South Africa, Zakes Mda has achieved this mixture admirably. Against the backdrop of political events of the pre- and post-Apartheid, he builds his narrative around the impact of one specific event and its aftermath on one small community, Excelsior. He captures the essence of life under Apartheid and the difficulties awaiting all when the regime ends.
Rabble Rouser for Peace is the authorized biography of Desmond Mpilo Tutu, the retired primate of the Anglican Church in South Africa – a man with a distinguished record in pastoral ministry and a sometimes controversial record as a hero in South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle.
A new book by Nelson Mandela was this month launched in Johannesburg, South Africa. The book titled, Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorized Book of Quotations is published by , and is a collection of quotes drawn from Mandela’s speeches, notebook entries, recorded conversations and other materials.
A mall is a safe place, right? Crowds of shoppers looking, buying, coveting, envying. A small town, really. What if this concentration of consumerism had the power to bring a surreal and grotesque exaggeration of itself into being. This is the premise of The Mall.
There’s a lot that Nelson Mandela has said – before and after his 27-year incarceration. In Nelson Mandela By Himself, recently released by Pan Macmillan/PQ Blackwell, all Mandela has ever said outside his bedroom is showcased in all its intellectual glory. Read Don Makatile’s review of the book.
Greenberg’s Home Away, published in 2010 by Zebra Press, is a fascinating book, which details the experiences of twenty-four South Africans, its immigrants and emigrants, in a foreign city for 24 hours. What do you do in a day in a strange land?
South African writer Roger Smith is one of the hottest names in crime fiction. He’s been described as “master of cooly described nightmare” by Marcus Müntefering (Der Spiegel Crime Novels of the Month) and “the Elmore Leonard of South Africa” by Mike Ripley (Shotsmag). Smith’s debut thriller, Mixed Blood (2009), was nominated for a Spinetingler Best Novel award in the U.S.
Sifiso Mzobe and Ronnie Kasrils were recently crowned winners of the 2011 Sunday Times Literary Awards at a gala event in Johannesburg, South Africa. The awards, South Africa’s most prestigious literary awards, recognize the country’s best writers in the fiction and non-fiction categories.
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