Life is frequently about ‘turning up’ and Tony Leon was present at the making of history both big and small.

Being There is a frank and insightful collection of insider accounts from a life in politics. The centrepiece is Leon’s riveting diary of the GNU negotiations that went down to the wire following the 2024 elections. This is the first and only inside account of these talks.

He also casts his gimlet eye on the fault lines of the Middle East, shares ambassadorial adventures in Argentina, and outlines the perils of political party fundraising. Written in Leon’s vintage style – observant, witty, acerbic – he proves the maxim that much of success is simply about being there.

Rorisang Thandekiso is one of South Africa’s most beloved media personalities. She has contributed to the arts industry in an authentic, memorable way.

In Disciple Rorisang takes the reader deeper into her relationship with faith, describing her love for the Word of God and for Jesus.

Disciple is an open-hearted, humorous, vulnerable look into the life of a young woman whose love for God spills over into the world.

A compelling and agonising story.

Durban-based journalist Glynis Horning and her husband Chris woke up one Sunday morning almost two years ago to the devastating discovery of their 25-year-old son Spencer dead in his bed. Horning’s story chronicles a parent’s worst nightmare. Establishing that his death was suicide, Horning embarks on a journey of anguished self-recrimination.

Should she not have seen the signs? Could she somehow have prevented it? As she struggles with Spencer’s decision to end his life, she has to learn to understand what the depths of depression entail. We feel Horning’s pain, and learn to understand and feel Spencer’s pain, at a visceral level.

Surrounded by loving family and friends, Horning pieces together the puzzle of Spencer’s death, writing with a brutal and heart-searing intensity of grief and loss, but also of the joys of celebrating her son’s life. This book will touch anyone who has experienced a mental health journey directly or indirectly, or a searing loss. Her wisdom and insight are extraordinary.

Accessible and engaging short stories about Nelson Mandela, to celebrate 100 years since his birth.

How do you retell the well-worn life story of a national icon? One way is this: a palimpsest of a hundred memories of the great man, revolutionary, world leader, and family figure, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth. Kate Sidley offers renewed and touching insight into Mandela by retelling humorous, heart-warming and momentous moments from his life, roughly chronologically, drawing from his own writing and the memories of contemporaries, historians and ordinary people. The reading experience is multi-varied and complex, touching and inspiring, like Madiba himself.

100 Mandela Moments is divided into sections, according to the many roles Mandela played in his lifetime: the school boy, the student, the lawyer, the outlaw, the prisoner, the negotiator, the statesman, the elder. Each story or “moment” is short and encapsulates something about the man behind the legend, and the book can be read cover to cover or dipped into.

Born Karoline King in 1980 in Johannesburg South Africa, Sara-Jayne (as she will later be called by her adoptive parents) is the result of an affair, illegal under apartheid’s Immorality Act, between a white British woman and her black South African employee. Her story reveals the shocking lie created to cover up the forbidden relationship, and the hurried overseas adoption of the illegitimate baby, born during one of history’s most inhumane and destructive regimes.

Killing Karoline follows the journey of the baby girl (categorised as ‘white’ under South Africa’s race classification system) who is raised in a leafy, middle-class corner of the South of England by a white couple. It takes the reader through the formative years, a difficult adolescence and into adulthood, as Sara-Jayne (Karoline) seeks to discover who she is and where she came from. Plagued by questions surrounding her own identity and unable to ‘fit in’ Sara-Jayne (Karoline) begins to turn on herself, before eventually coming full circle and returning to South Africa after 26 years to face her demons. There she is forced to face issues of identity, race, rejection and belonging beyond that which she could ever have imagined.

She must also face her birth family, who in turn must confront what happens when the baby you kill off at a mere six weeks old, returns from the dead.

The year is 1976, and South Africa is gripped by a terrible lockdown – apartheid. Nelson Mandela is in prison on Robben Island; South Africa is isolated from the rest of the world, and revolution is in the air.

Against this background, a young student at Johannesburg’s Wits University decides to try and take control of his life, and his destiny, and give himself a sense of purpose. He challenges himself to run South Africa’s most famous long-distance race, the grueling 90-kilometre Comrades Marathon. Little does he know that five years later he will win this most iconic of races and he will go on to be considered one of the greatest Comrades runners in the history of the race.

In Winged Messenger, Bruce shares this 1976/77 training diary so that raw novices and experienced runners alike can follow the journey he took to his first Comrades. Novices particularly will enjoy reading about how he took his first stumbling, rudimentary steps and how, as an ordinary runner, he began to understand the demands of the race. He documents his mistakes, his successes and his progress towards his date with destiny in May 1977. Using his own experiences, he guides others, but particularly novices, on their quests to become winged messengers.

This is a unique blend of both a training guide and a fascinating glimpse of the life of a young man in his quest to conquer both himself and South Africa’s greatest race.

Zola Mahobe came from Soweto and turned himself into a jet-setting multimillionaire. He was a habitual bank robber. The founding father of present-day Mamelodi Sundowns transformed the soccer club to the elite of the first division.

He meets Snowy Moshoeshoe who becomes his lover and partner in crime. After convincing Moshoeshoe to leave her nursing job to take up a job at Standard Bank Mahobe’s businesses start to grow.

Dikgang Moseneke shares the story of how Mahobe often invited him and Willie Seriti to games. He often told them: ‘I am a man with many challenges. I like to travel with my lawyers and my gunman next to me.’

Mahobe and Moshoeshoe continue pilfering millions from Standard Bank for five years. The bank discovers their scheme and Mahobe is arrested in Botswana.

The untold story of Mahobe is one of the biggest stories to come out of apartheid South Africa and compares with that of the notorious bank-robbing Stander Gang. This book is impossible to put down.

Mapetla Mohapi was a leading member of the Black Consciousness Movement, and the first to die in detention in 1976. Police produced a 'suicide note'. The note was later confirmed by a British expert as a forgery. Since then, his wife Nohle has worked tirelessly for justice.

Zikhona Valela traces the politics of the time, the convergence of biographies that led to the brutal and tragic death of Mapetla Mohapi, and the effects on Nohle and the Mohapi family.

A shocking and necessary book.

Die motiewe agter gesinsmoorde is dikwels vreemder as fiksie. Tergende vrae kan deur psigiaters beantwoord word ... of dalk nie. Deur na verskeie gevalle van gesinsmoord te kyk gooi hierdie boek ’n bietjie lig in 'n baie donker plek. Met onder meer die stories van die Lotters wat gebreinspoel was tot moord op hul ouers en die Van Breda bylmoorde.

Lenerd Louw shares his journey of learning and awakening.

Jump is a book about Lenerd Louw's experiences including his playboy lifestyle in Cape Town, the difficulty and confusion when a massive internal shift occurred in him, the decision to walk away from it all, starting the outer journey all around the world whilst doing the tough deep inner journey at the same time. It includes his two-year period of celibacy at the start of his travels, his travels to fascinating places and his learnings at each place. It’s a story of personal expansion and awakening, of surrender, of trust and of transformation.

He sees the same shift now happening to many people around him, be it ex colleagues, friends or new people he has met. He feels a calling to share his journey. The book is one way of doing that!

The Love Song Of Andre P. Brink is the first biography of this major South African novelist who, during his lifetime, was published in over 30 languages and ranked with the likes of Gabriel García Márquez, Peter Carey and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Leon de Kock’s eagerly awaited account of Brink’s life is richly informed by a previously unavailable literary treasure: the dissident Afrikaner’s hoard of journal-writing, a veritable chronicle that was 54 years in the making. In this massive new biographical source – running to a million words – Brink does not spare himself, or anyone else for that matter, as he narrates the ups and downs of his five marriages and his compulsive affairs with a great number of women. These are precisely the topics that the rebel in both politics and sex skated over in his memoir, A Fork in the Road.

De Kock’s biographical study of the author who came close to winning the Nobel Prize for Literature not only synthesises the journals but also subjects them to searching critical analysis. In addition, the biographer measures the journals against additional sources, both scholarly and otherwise, among them the testimony of Brink’s friends, family, wives and lovers.

The Love Song Of Andre P. Brink subjects Brink’s literary legacy to a bracing scholarly re-evaluation, making this major new biography a crucial addition to scholarship on Brink

Most of the time, the road to riches is a closely guarded secret, until now. Jacana Media presents Mpho Dagada, one such young, self-made millionaire who in his memoir, Mr Bitcoin, shares his story of triumph and failure. He tells his story from the beginning: being brought up by business-minded and accomplished grandparents who planted in him the seeds of what it means to be successful in business.

Mpho Dagada’s interest in Bitcoin was ignited when he was in his first year at the University of Johannesburg in 2013 after opening his own laundry and cleaning service company. He invested his profits from this company in Bitcoin. He currently owns a logistics company, a chain of fast food restaurants and is in the process of developing the first black-owned cryptocurrency exchange platform.

This book is both motivational and practical, examining the errors and pitfalls that Dagada had to go through in his business pursuits. These included falling for Ponzi schemes like Kipi and losing his money on more than one occasion. Through these many lows were lessons of great value which ultimately led to the endless possibilities that Bitcoin presents for those interested in creating wealth through trading cryptocurrencies and running a successful business.

Dagada is confident in the viability of Bitcoin and ascertains that "we will never understand the money of the future without learning how money came about in the first place. Blockchain and Bitcoin are now pioneering a new online financial world. Cryptocurrencies will replace fiat money in the end, as they are faster, better and more convenient than all the earlier forms of currency."

Samantha is stamped with a 'bipolar' label that becomes the trajectory for her tortured existence. For the next three decades she will wind through a maze of anguished suffering, accompanied by memory-effacing medical interventions in the form of electroconvulsive therapies, heaps of pills and repellent hallucinations. As her helpless family and loved ones watch, often in terror, Samantha yo-yos between acceptance and denial of her diagnosis. Time and again believing she is well, she plummets into the devastating chasm of her illness.

Life Interrupted is a deeply compelling memoir that brilliantly humanises the sufferer beyond the label. It is groundbreaking in the way the author shares the horrors of psychosis and unbounded mania, the fears of depression and the emergence of recovery.

This book will not only appeal to the over four million people diagnosed with bipolar in South Africa, but to the millions of people who are affected by loved ones with bipolar, as well as to everyone who reads it.

In August 2016, well-known South African businessman Herman Mashaba became mayor of Johannesburg, heading a razor-thin DA-led coalition in the city. Three years later, in October 2019, he resigned from the party and from his position as mayor. At the time, Mashaba’s approval rating stood at almost 70 per cent and there were calls in overwhelming numbers for him to stay. In this explosive tell-all, his chief of staff, Michael Beaumont, reveals the real story behind these events.

The Accidental Mayor considers the achievements, challenges and controversies of Mashaba’s time in office, and describes what went on behind the scenes in the city and in the multiparty coalition. What was discovered about the previous government’s looting of Johannesburg? How did the ANC take to being in opposition? How challenging was it to work with the EFF? Which party proved the most difficult coalition partner? All these questions and more are explored in detail.

At a time when the DA’s popularity is in decline, The Accidental Mayor highlights the infighting and factionalism within the party and questions whether South Africa’s official opposition has reached the end of the road. Can Herman Mashaba, arguably one of South Africa’s most popular former mayors, offer an alternative for the future?

The healing power of life writing, one shared story at a time

This Is How It Is a “refreshing, poignant and wide-ranging” (Helen Moffett) collection of real life experiences: 52 stories, prose and poetry, that tell of a man who is anxious about an HIV test; a child with an alarming nose for gossip and a girl who is saved by the enemy in a war zone. Some of the writers are grieving the loss of a child or struggling with addiction, abuse, bullying or betrayal. Most of these writers have never been published before. They wrote these stories primarily to bear witness to their lives and the troubled times in which we live. Putting traumatic experiences down on paper can help people work through shame, guilt and fear, releasing them from the traps they lay. Writing is sometimes able to turn a painful incident into something more manageable, even beautiful.

Sharing stories can also heal both the writer and the reader. When we first meet a stranger, we make assumptions about them. When we hear of their life in their own words, we find that many of our negative assumptions are wrong. Often we discover that we are more alike than we are different. Our magnificent world is in trouble, much of it because we are not paying attention to what is right in front of us. When the facts don’t stir us to reconsider, story can. This anthology invites us to become curious and reflective rather than fearful and defensive. It encourages us to climb down from the ladder of hierarchy and competition and to join the circle of relationship and humanity by becoming vulnerable enough to share and listen to our own and each other’s half-hidden stories.

But equally importantly, Bongani Kona, 2016 Caine Prize finalist, reminds us: “We forget that the most daring thing we can do is to allow ourselves to be seen. To stand before the world and to say this is who I am. This is how it is.”

About THE LIFE RIGHTING COLLECTIVE: The Life Righting Collective (LRC) runs courses for anyone who wants to learn to write about their experiences. The approach promotes self-discovery, self-recovery and more effective communication. It raises funds to make courses available to those in need of sponsorship and to provide platforms for these life stories to be published. Sharing experiences with a wide readership can help reduce discrimination and promote mutual understanding. Visit the website: www.liferighting.com

Albertina Sisulu is revered by South Africans as the true mother of the nation. A survivor of the golden age of the African National Congress, whose life with the second most important figure in the ANC exemplified the underpinning role of women in the struggle against apartheid.

In 1944 she was the sole woman at the inaugural meeting of the radical offshoot of the ANC, the Youth League, with Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo and Anton Lembede in the vanguard. Her final years were spent in an unpretentious house in the former white Johannesburg suburb of Linden. A friend said of her, "she treated everybody alike. But her main concern was the welfare of our women and children." This abridged account of Sisulu’s overflowing life provides a fresh understanding of an iconic figure of South African history.

This new abridged memoir is written by Sindiwe Magona, one of South Africa’s most prolific authors, and Elinor Sisulu, writer, activist and daughter-in-law of Albertina.

Die oorlewingstog van 'n dapper vrou.

“ ʼn Kale vlakte waar my regterbors eens was. Ek maak my oë toe en laat my brein toe om te proe aan hierdie monumentale ding. Kanker schmanker, besluit ek. Ek is nog net soveel vrou soos voor die operasie. My vroulikheid het toe al die tyd nie in my bors gesit nie. Dit sit in my kop, in my hart, in daardie onmeetbare, onaantasbare iets wat die gees genoem word.”

In hierdie aangrypende boek deel die bekende spanningsverhaalskrywer Madelein Rust die intiemste besonderhede van haar reis met borskanker. Dit is ʼn brutaal eerlike vertelling wat haar belewenis van die siekte met patos en humor uitbeeld. Lesers verkry ʼn eiesoortige blik op die fisieke ervarings van borskankerstryders sowel as die ewig veranderende binnewêreld van dié wat teen die siekte veg.

Kanker schmanker! rus borskankerstryders toe met inligting wat nie altyd geredelik beskikbaar is nie en help hul geliefdes om die reis met kanker beter te verstaan. Dit is ʼn boek van hoop en triomf wat die leser hardop laat huil en laat lag. Dis 'n verhaal vir elkeen van ons wat ʼn stryd van enige aard stry.

This South African story is an invitation to enrich conversations that could lead to social transformation and social cohesion in racially polarized world.

The book implicitly acknowledges that many white people have sought to be part of the journey towards racial harmony, but in most cases, it has been done without a paradigm shift on the part of white compatriots. It has been done with very limited understanding of the black world and with many assumptions.

The author is honest and raw, without placing judgements on his childhood experiences, simply telling it like it was. There are moments of brilliant humor, one can be laughing aloud, and minutes later, are hit like a punch in the gut by something unjust that happened or was observed. The art and power of effective and excellent storytelling is on display in this book. The storytelling is masterful.

The book leaves one with a feeling of challenge, a dose of hope-filled reality -- not just reality, and not false 'peace' talk -- but a discussion of hope-filled reality.

How did a teenage refugee from communist Poland become one of the richest women in South Africa? In what ways did she disrupt the financial services industry? What drove her to become an activist exposing corporate and government corruption? What are her secrets for succeeding in business and life?

The founder of multibillion-rand financial services empire Sygnia Limited, Magda Wierzycka is South Africa’s most successful businesswoman. In this engaging and insightful book, she tells the story of her life, from her childhood in communist Poland, her family’s escape and relocation to South Africa, her early struggles in the male-dominated financial services industry, and the formation and growth of her own company, Sygnia.

With a business model built on transparency and low fees, it was a natural step for Magda to become an outspoken critic of corporate and government corruption, exposing wrongdoing and making her many powerful enemies in the process.

In this book, Magda shares the life lessons and business principles that have driven her and brought her success. This is a fascinating story that will inspire you to speak out, lean in, break out, and ultimately empower yourself not only to survive in life and business, but to thrive.

Maverick. Leadership genius. Self-made millionaire. Dragon. The rock star of public speaking. Vusi Thembekwayo has been called many things.

Join him in his inspiring journey from the township to the top echelons of South African business, to becoming one of the youngest directors of a listed company and CEO of a boutique investment firm. As a Dragons' Den judge and a sought- after public speaker across the globe, Vusi doesn't just talk business – he lives it.

Now you can learn the secret of his success and how to shape your own destiny.

I came to know the country, I have enacted my life not better or worse than others, the harvest was not richer or poorer than that of others, though full of good shoots. But I knew that I was coming to die here next to the river; I came to look for it like the elephants do.

Poet Antjie Krog returns to the landscape of her childhood. The Free State plains enchant her – it is her home, and the home of her mother, the writer Dot Serfontein. In her nineties, Dot is frail and needs full-time care, but her intellect and sense of humour are razor-sharp, and her writing is comparable to that of her daughter.

In Blood’s Inner Rhyme, Antjie Krog breaks the boundaries between genres and writes about this relationship that continues to fascinate and torment her. Using letters, diary entries and care-home records, the book explores creative influence, ideological disagreements and the realities of ageing.

Krog exposes the insurmountable differences between generations but also shows the love and mutual admiration between two highly skilled writers. Beautifully and poignantly written, Blood’s Inner Rhyme delves into cultural heritage, the country's Anglo-Boer War history, issues of land ownership and race, as well as romantic relationships across racial boundaries.

The story of the relationship between mother and daughter, this is Krog’s most personal book, as well as the most universal.

South Africa’s pre-eminent historian explains the spectacular rise – and probable demise – of the numerical minority that dominated 20th-century South Africa.

The Afrikaners are unique in the world in that they successfully mobilised ethnic entrepreneurship without state assistance, controlled the entire country, and then yielded power without military defeat. Award-winning author Hermann Giliomee takes a hard analytical look at this group’s dramatic ascent and possible disappearance as a nation in a series of well-argued thematic chapters. Topics range from ethnic entrepreneurship, the ‘coloured vote’ and ‘Bantu’ education to Nelson Mandela’s relationship with the last Afrikaner leaders.

It ends with a final chapter on the most likely future for this sometimes admired, often reviled group, which undoubtedly left the largest imprint on South African history in the 20th century.

'When I’m dead, you make sure that ordinary people, ordinary rural women, must be at the forefront of my funeral. I want my rural women to be there at the forefront: people that know me well.’

With great care and meticulous research, Kally Forrest brings us the life of Lydia Komape, also known as Mam Lydia Kompe. Kally travels in Lydia’s footsteps, with family, friends, comrades and ancestors from Limpopo and Johannesburg to Cape Town where Lydia sat in Nelson Mandela’s parliament.

Her family’s shattering loss of land in the 1930s deeply impacted Lydia’s life choices. She was fiercely independent, yet bound by the collective, forceful but consultative, humorous and deeply serious.

Lydia closely identified with rural women, remarking, ‘We are so discriminated against, but we are made to work like donkeys. We do all the dirty work – you must go and plough, hoe, harvest, carry water, fetch wood, and men are just sitting drinking alcohol under the tree.’

This is a biography that will open your eyes and heart.

An inspiring story of one man’s rise from poverty and oppression to success and fame in the international world of opera...

It is a difficult undertaking for any human to escape the cycle of poverty, but to do so from one of the world’s most complex political systems, with a brutal history of segregation and deprivation, is nothing short of a miracle. Yet Musa Ngqungwana’s story doesn’t end there. Not only did he manage to extricate himself from his impoverished past, but he found his way to the great opera houses of the world, attaining immense success in an affluent art form that bears no resemblance to his upbringing or culture. Musa’s life and career are proof that any human can overcome the devastating effects of discrimination and poverty.

Odyssey Of An African Opera Singer chronicles Musa’s journey from the townships of South Africa to the world stage. It is a story of hope, showing how humans, no matter their situation, have the opportunity to claim their gifts, develop them and use them to help others in need. A captivating story that will inspire anyone who has ever had a dream...

Rosie Motene's story is about a young girl born to the Bafokeng nation during the apartheid era in South Africa.

At the time, Rosie’s mother worked for a white Jewish family in Johannesburg who offered to raise the child as one of their own. This generous gesture by the family created many opportunities for Rosie but also a trail of sacrifices for her parents. As she grew, Rosie struggled to find her true identity.

She had access to the best of everything but as a black girl she floundered without her own culture or language. This book describes Rosie’s journey through her fog of alienation to the belated dawning of herself discovery as an African.