Books

Combining analytical insight with personal observations and experience, Judith February highlights the complex process of building a strong democratic society in her new book Turning and Turning and the difficulties of living in a constitutional democracy marked by soaring levels of inequality. There is a need to reflect on and learn from the country’s democratic journey if citizens are to shape our democracy effectively and to fulfill the promise of the Constitution for all South Africans....

A story of conquest, dispossession and un-naming

The House of Tshatshu: Power, politics and chiefs north-west of the Great Kei River is written by Anne Mager and Jeff Phiko Velelo. In rural South Africa today, there are signs that chieftaincies are resurging after having been disbanded in colonial times.

Where is “fanatical capitalism” taking us?

Johannesburg is unequal but so are all global cities. Can Jozi lead the way in reversing inequality? Or is Jo’burg becoming more unequal? These are the questions addressed in short essays in a new book Reversing Urban Inequality in Johannesburg.Like most cities today, Jo’burg’s development is overdetermined by urban policy that is based upon the ideology of neoliberal capitalism.

From muse to the machine: creativity in the digital age

What is creativity? Can creative writing be taught? And what are the implications of technological advances for the fiction writer? These are some of the daunting questions tackled by Brian Chikwava, who is an artist in residence at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS). He is also an award-winning writer and musician and he is at STIAS to work on his latest collection of short stories. In a seminar held on Stellenbosh campus he interrogates the notion of creativity.

Stopping the Spies, Jane Duncan’s new book on state surveillance

Duncan’s book Stopping the Spies asks some important questions like: are South African citizens being spied on by the state? Is state surveillance used for the democratic purpose of making people safer, or is it being used for the repressive purpose of social control? And is the state becoming like a one-way mirror, where it can see more of what its citizens do and say, while citizens see less and less of what the state does?

#FeesMustFall is a “must read”

Fallism will pass to history as a major earthquake that moved the foundations of South African consciousness and society, but also as a project that brought back the idea of decolonisation as an incomplete project in full force to South Africa. In this, Fallism is not alone, as decolonisation movements and projects have been growing world-wide. But Fallism has unique contributions that this book helps to identify and make clear.This book is an extremely valuable and much needed contribution to the emerging literature about Fallism.

Philani Dladla is 28 years old, a previously homeless man who reviews and sells books. He travels around the streets of Johannesburg with a small library and sells and reviews books for those passing by, he prefers this to begging for money. He has a difficult personal history, but his passion for books and reading has led to viral videos, a TED talk and numerous interviews with national and international publications. Added to his recent accolades is his very own memoir, titled ‘The Pavement...

In Sorry, Not Sorry, Haji Mohamed Dawjee explores the often maddening experience of moving through post-apartheid South Africa as a woman of colour. She pulls no punches when examining the social landscape: from arguing why she’d rather deal with an open racist than some liberal white people, to drawing on her own experience to convince readers that joining a cult is never a good idea. In the provocative voice that has made Mohamed Dawjee one of our country’s most talked-about columnists, she...

Experiences of a brown woman in white South Africa

Not bothering to put shoes on would be a great timesaver. And prancing around in your bare hooves is a great cost saver. When white people don’t bother with shoes in public, they’re never judged for it. If I stood in the pasta-sauce aisle at a fancy grocery store as my authentic self, bare heels firmly on the ground, a lot of people would be physically disgusted.It’s economics. And it’s racism. A shoeless person of colour in a fancy grocery store surely does not belong there…

The Cradock Four’s Fort Calata and his son, Lukhanyo

When the Cradock Four’s Fort Calata was murdered by agents of the apartheid state in 1985, his son Lukhanyo was only three years old. Thirty-one years later Lukhanyo, now a journalist, becomes one of the SABC Eight when he defies Hlaudi Motsoeneng’s reign of censorship at the public broadcaster by writing an open letter that declares: my father didn’t die for this. With his wife Abigail, Lukhanyo brings to life the father he never knew

“I write historical fiction to tame the past”

“My mission is to tell a good story. If I don’t make my characters human – the story will fail,” said Zakes Mda. The legendary South African novelist, poet and playwright, is currently an artist-in-residence at The Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study where he is completing his latest historical novel, The Zulus of New York.In The Zulus of New York, Mda tells the story of a group of Zulus who were sent to England and later the United States

Tutuola’s novels are founded on the lived realities of Yoruba society

For many years, Amos Tutuola, the Nigerian author who was born in 1920 and died in 1997, was despised, ridiculed and made to appear exotic and primitive. He was dismissed by his critics as a relic of a dying and forgotten past of a dark continent that was awakening and harkening to the call of Europe’s colonising civilisation.But something has shifted in the two decades since his death.

Keorapetse William “Bra Willie” Kgositsile 1938 – 2018

When an African literary giant such as Keorapetse William “Bra Willie” Kgositsile’s soul departs from earth, it inspires many whose lives he had touched, to take to their tools of their trades and bear testimony to the pieces of the mosaic that was his life. Artists took to canvass with oil, musicians beat drums and blew horns, writers put pen to paper to celebrate his contributions to humanity and as evidence to a life well lived.

Former President’s political fortunes may be revived sooner rather than later

There has been a plethora of publications on Thabo Mbeki. Many are either rabidly anti-Mbeki or unashamedly pro and so there are only a few balanced accounts of democratic South Africa’s second president. In 2016 a biography by Adekeye Adebajo was released, titled A Jacana Pocket Biography: Thabo Mbeki. It describes the leader as a “complex figure, full of contradictions and paradoxes”.

Sisonke Msimang: Growing up in exile, longing for home and the baggage of being South African.

Acclaimed activist and author Sisonke Msimang released her first book, ‘Always Another Country’. From Kenya and Ethiopia, through to Canada and the USA, Msimang reflects on what it means to be born in exile in the midst of the South African liberation movement. Her memoir contains beautiful details of childhood punctuated with pain, lessons and revolutionary heroes.

“Poetry is not always pretty but sometimes it brings us close to beauty.”

Renowned South African poet and academic, Gabeba Baderoon, is currently working on her fourth poetry collection, Axis and Revolution whilst in residence at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study. She read poems to a packed audience at Stellenbosch University which encompassed very personal depictions of love and betrayal, her family and home, and the power of photographic images.

Hunted by bomashonisa, hit by depression and eventually turning the tide

Mfuneni Barnabas Mabunda hails from a village in Mpumalanga and is the author of “Turn Your Fate Into Gold: Take Heart My Son”. The novel portrays the many struggles faced by black South Africans through the character, Topson Makhandla. Magnificent Mndebele talks to the writer about being inspired by real life experiences.Topson Makhandla is an intelligent young man who passes high school with flying colours.

Review: A History of The Iziko South African National Gallery

Galleries are vital spaces, public places where we are able to contemplate and better understand the complexities and makings of our society. In this way, they are much like history museums, only their walls are lined with canvases and contain installations or sculpture works rather than taxidermy, ancient or antique objects, and glass-cased re-enactments of battle scenes and civilizations.Cape Town’s Iziko National Gallery is a historically complex, but vital combination of gallery space.

Book launch: collection of inspirational real-life stories from Africa

We Will Lead Africa contributes an open call to practitioners to further inform our conclusions of where we are now and what more is needed to attain the Africa we want. It is a shift from viewing leadership in Africa from the sociopolitical lens or theoretical lens, to a focus on leadership at every level. It neither denies the overemphasised challenges of the continent, nor privileges the Africa-rising narrative. It calls us to see beyond what the mainstream says and own our part of making the change we want.

Celebrating the life and courage of a remarkable South African muslim feminist

The anthology is co-edited by South American Muslim women’s rights activist, journalist and scholar Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente (Chile), Naeem Jeenah (South Africa) and Shehnaz Haqqani (United States) and celebrates Shamima Shaikh’s legacy, life and courage. The book highlights the struggles and issues that she held dear and believed were important for the transformation to a more inclusive society.

What to do with the world Achebe has left us.

Both Nadine Gordimer and Simon Gikandi have said that the publication of Things Fall Apart marks the invention of the African novel. True, there had been novels in Africa long before Chinua Achebe came on the scene. But the publication of Things Fall Apart is the event that inaugurated the African novel as a global literary project. It was essentially the global debut of the novel as an African form.

Watch out for these literary giants of the future!

In a combined book launch at the University of the Free State last month, two young authors showcased their work. Stacey Fru is only 10 years old and Reikantse Manaka is 12. These two bright minds blew the audience away with their fascinating books and their passion for literature.Literacy is a fundamental human right. Like equality, right of movement and residence, it is one of the most essential rights for any individual in society.

The First and Last Word- Freedom

Over the next few months, The Journalist will publish excerpts from Albie Sachs new book We, the People: Insights of an Activist Judge. In his latest book, the stalwart activist and former judge takes readers back to the broad-based popular foundations of the Constitution in the Freedom Charter. In his second chapter, ‘The First and Last Word- Freedom’ Sachs considers the nature of oppression during and pre-apartheid, as well as the building blocks which aided…

Identity Interrogation and the assumptions of African experiences

Identity Interrogation is a commonplace experience for Yabome Gilpin-Jackson, a black African woman, who was born in Germany, grew up in Sierra Leone and studied in Canada and America. She has lived in Canada half of her life, but is still asked the question: “Where are you from?” Her recently released book, Identities: A short story collection, is a compilation of experiences on global African identities that spark dialogues that go beyond stereotypes and assumptions of African experiences.