Whitey Basson, remarkable business leader, is often hailed as a ‘genius’ by his peers. Basson became a legend when, in the most famous takeover deal in SA, he bought OK Bazaars for the nominal sum of a single Rand. In this authorised biography, the award-winning financial journalist Niel Joubert pieces together the complex, fascinating story of how Basson grew Shoprite from eight small stores valued at R1 million into the largest retailer in Africa, and the 35th largest retailer in the world.

Based on years of research, including many hours spent with Basson, Joubert traces his life in colourful detail, from a Porterville farm, to Pep Stores, to where he sets out to apply the 'Pep formula' to the unforgiving world of food.

Starting from a small office filled with boxes, Basson built Shprite via growth and acquisitions, swallowing Grand Bazaars, Checkers, and others before the famous OK Bazaars deal, and finally reaching his lifelong target of eclipsing Pick n Pay.

In December 1965, in a smoke-filled hotel room in Morocco, South African journalist Terry Bell accepted a challenge: to paddle a kayak from London to Tangier.

At the time, Terry and his wife Barbara were living as political exiles in London. By August 1967, they agreed it was time to get back to Africa. But they decided to up the ante. Their plan: paddle 11 000 kilometres from England to Dar es Salaam in a 5-metre glass fibre kayak.

The book includes a section on culinary kayaking – the recipes that Barbara cooked along the way.

African Bank is focused on reclaiming the heritage of South Africa through key marketing and strategic consumer moments, and to accomplish this they are partnering with Rockhopper Books to release the first in a series of coffee table books celebrating great figures in South African history.

This first edition entitled Black Pioneers uncovers stories of Black Entrepreneurs in the 1960s; a time when there were little to no opportunities for people of colour to succeed in business. The book pays homage to Black Business Pioneers of the time, who were audacious enough to challenge the system and pave a new path for Black Businesses.

The book serves to tell stories of Black Businesses; highlighting their history, challenges, successes, and contributions to business at large. Featuring high-quality images the book tells the stories of impactful South African figures including:

• Constance Ntshona
• Sally Motlana
• SJJ Lesolang
• An Gadi
• HM Pitje
• PK Seabela
• Lawrence Malindi
• Sam Motsuenyane

Op 40 voel Gerard Scholtz onfiks, vet en verveeld. Hy koop ’n tweedehandse fiets en trap saam met sy vrou Anuta die Argus tot hulle gereed is om verder te reis.

Van St Petersburg tot Moskou; die lengte en breedte van Frankryk; oor die Alpe, oor die groot riviere van Europa, Ierland en Wallis reis hulle. Later is dit twee skoeters waarmee hulle elke jaar tot 10 000 kilometer deur Europa aflê. Hulle reis ook per trein, per motor, boot en soms te voet.

In hierdie bundel spreek Gerard se vertellings van sy kennis en liefde vir geskiedenis, kuns, musiek, letterkunde … Hy word veel meer as net reisiger en verteller. Gerard neem die leser ook ’n op metafisiese avontuur …

Die Boereheldin Johanna Brandt, wat bekendheid verwerf het met haar boeke Het concentratie-kamp van Irene (1905), The Petticoat Commando (1913) en Die Kappiekommando (1913) was 'n merkwaardige vrou, besonder intelligent en met sterk leierseienskappe en buitengewone energie. Gedurende die Anglo-Boereoorlog word sy betrek in die spioenasienetwerk van die Transvaalse geheime diens en haar woning word 'n skuilplek vir boerespioene. Vir 'n tyd lank is sy ook kampverpleegster in die Irene-konsentrasiekamp. Na die oorlog neem sy as predikantsvrou 'n leidende rol in die opheffing van die verarmde Boerevrouens en help bou aan die geestelike vorming van 'n nasionale bewussyn en die emansipasie van die vrou.

Brutally dragged 780 metres beneath a taxi – a young woman’s inspiring story of survival, courage, and the will to live.

13 September 2011. The story would shock thousands and be remembered by many for years to come. It would be plastered all over the papers and continue to attract interest well after the shock factor of what happened had passed. Reports and articles would be written, and “facts”, as given to reporters by some of those involved and willing to be interviewed, would be recounted and repeated in all forms of public media over the months and even years that followed. And although these versions would generate widespread outrage, none was entirely accurate.

"The stories were about me. I was there. I am Kim McCusker - the girl who was dragged by a taxi. This, as I experienced it, is the true version of events."

James Leatt was nine when the Nationalist Party came to power, and eleven when he saw a documentary of the Allied forces liberating Nazi death camps. For most of his life the shadows of apartheid and the Holocaust have dogged his beliefs about faith, the meaning of life and the moral challenges humankind faces.

Conjectures is a philosophical reflection on his life and times as he grapples with the realities of parish work in black communities, teaching ethics in a business school under apartheid, managing a university in the dying days of the Nationalist regime, and eventually working in higher education in post-apartheid South Africa.

Weaving strands of his personal life with the questions of theodicy and modernity as well as drawing upon the Western philosophical tradition and the wisdom of East Asian traditions such as Taoism and Buddhism, he comes to terms with a disenchanted reality which has no need for supernatural or magical thought and practice.

He has learned to live with questions. If you no longer believe in God and a sacred text, what are your sources of meaning? What kind of moral GPS allows you to find your way? Is what might be called a secular spirituality even possible?

Conjectures traces the author’s search for a secular way of being that is meaningful, mindful and reverent.

Brand Pretorius knows what it means to be a leader: he was at the head of Toyota South Africa during its heyday, and took over as chief executive at the McCarthy Group. He knows that leadership means making hard and unpopular decisions with an eye on the long term.

He writes about his four decades in business and the lessons he learnt. He illustrates his lessons on leadership with tales from his illustrious career in motoring, like how it feels to be in a Formula 1 racing car with one of the world’s best drivers.

This book gives a rare insight into what it means to do business in South Africa, and how a South African business leader can navigate all of our country’s complexities.

Filled with the wisdom of hard experience, with lessons which, though in the first instance aimed at business people, can be applied in any sphere of life.

An inspirational and gripping book.

Hierdie boek is die voltooiing van Elsa Joubert se outobiografiese drieluik wat ingelei is deur ’n Wonderlike geweld (2005) en Reisiger (2009). Dit fokus hoofsaaklik op die skrywer se latere jare, in die aftreeoord in Kaapstad waar sy nou al geruime tyd woon, maar haar belewenis van die hede en onlangse verlede word onlosmaaklik vervleg met herinneringe aan veel verder terug, alles geteken met die kenmerkende woordvaardigheid van een van Afrikaans se mees gevierde skrywers.

Elsa Joubert - Biografiese inligting

Elsabé (Elsa) Antoinette Murray Joubert is op 19 Oktober 1922 in die Paarl gebore. Sy matrikuleer in 1939 aan die Hoër Meisieskool La Rochelle in die Paarl. Sy behaal ’n BA-graad (1942) en ’n Sekondêre Onderwysdiploma (1943) aan die Universiteit van Stellenbosch.

In 1945 verwerf sy ’n meestersgraad aan die Universiteit van Kaapstad. Daarna is sy die vroueredakteur van Die Huisgenoot van 1946 tot 1948. Hierna begin sy te reis en in 1957 verskyn haar eerste reisverhaal, Water en woestyn, wat handel oor haar ervarings in Egipte en Uganda. Elsa Joubert se reise deur Afrika, Suid-Amerika, Europa en die Verre-Ooste het op ’n besondere wyse in haar werk neerslag gevind.

In 1963 verskyn haar eerste roman, Ons wag op die kaptein, wat onder meer die Eugène Marais-prys ontvang het. Sy is met die WA Hofmeyr-, CNA- en Louis Luyt-prys bekroon vir haar invloedryke roman Die swerfjare van Poppie Nongena (1978), wat in 2002 aangewys as een van die honderd beste boeke in Afrika.

In 1981 ken die British Royal Society of Literature die Winifred Holtby-prys aan haar toe en word sy ’n Fellow van die Society. Haar magistrale roman Die reise van Isobelle (1995) is met die Hertzogprys bekroon. Haar lewenswerk word bekroon met eredoktorsgrade van die Universiteite van Stellenbosch (2001) en Pretoria (2007), en sy ontvang die Orde van Ikhamanga (2004).

Skakel van Maandag, 18 Junie 2018 af in op RSG om te luister na Elsa Joubert se jongste roman, Spertyd (2017, Tafelberg) voorgelees deur Rika Sennett.

Unrecognised, ignored and forgotten. The Forgotten Scientist: The Story of Saul Sithole is the untold story of a pioneering black scientist who made a great contribution to the fields of anthropology and ornithology in South Africa. Saul Sithole was so committed to his craft that even the weight of apartheid did not stop him from giving 62 years of his life to the scientific world of birds and fossils. Saul never received the official recognition he deserved - until now. This book validates his contribution, sharing his life's work and laying out a story that will inspire future generations of scientists. This book would not have been possible without the support of Biblionef and funding from the National Heritage Council.

Growing up in extreme poverty in Messina (today Musina) in the early 1980s, Lovemore Ndou was forced to start boxing to protect himself and his family. At an early age, he experienced the injustices of the apartheid system when his arm was broken during a beating in a police cell and he saw his best friend gunned down in a protest march.

Through sheer determination, he managed to persevere and soon the Black Panther (his name in the ring) started winning matches. He left the country for Australia in the mid-1990s, made a name for himself internationally, and eventually became a triple-world champion despite setbacks and challenges. A number of big names in local and international boxing circles feature in the book, including Floyd Mayweather, with whom Ndou sparred during a stint in the USA.

Never knocked out in 64 professional bouts, he transitioned from combats in the ring to confrontations in the courtroom in a successful post-boxing career as a lawyer. Today he has his own practice in Sydney, Australia.

The inspiring true story of farmer Angus Buchan shows how faith can carry you through the darkest times in your life. Angus’s life changed completely when he accepted Jesus as Savior, going from an angry, hard-drinking man to a passionate servant of God. His bold faith carried him through droughts, family tragedy and financial crisis. Since his conversion, he’s traveled across the world in his ministry, set up a children’s home, written several books and inspired thousands of people with messages on TV, radio and during conferences. This book will inspire and deeply touch your heart and renew your confidence in the power of God and His care and provision for His children.

In her much anticipated memoir, Sisonke Msimang writes about her exile childhood in Zambia and Kenya, young adulthood and college years in North America, and returning to South Africa in the euphoric 1990s. She reflects candidly on her discontent and disappointment with present-day South Africa but also on her experiences of family, romance, and motherhood, with the novelist’s talent for character and pathos.

Militant young comrades dance off the pages of the 1970s Lusaka she invokes, and the heady and naive days of just-democratic South Africa in the 1990s are as vividly painted. Her memoir is at heart a chronicle of a coming-of-age, and while well-known South African political figures appear in these pages, it is an intimate story, a testament to family bonds and sisterhood.

Sisonke Msimang is one of the most assured and celebrated voices commenting on the South African present – often humorously; sometimes deeply movingly – and this book launches her to an even broader audience.

Imbokodo: Women Who Shape Us is a groundbreaking series of books which introduces you to the powerful stories of South African women who have all made their mark and cleared a path for women and girls. These books recognise, acknowledge and honour our heroines and elders from the past and the present.

South African women are silent no more on the roles that we have played in advancing our lives as artists, storytellers, writers, politicians and educationists. The title ‘Imbokodo’ was been chosen as it is a Zulu word that means “rock” and is often used in the saying ‘Wathint’ Abafazi, Wathint’ Imbokodo!’, which means “You Strike a Women, You Strike a Rock!”

In 10 Curious Inventors, Healers & Creators you will read about the women who shape our world through education, science and maths. You will read about women who became teachers, nurses, social workers, scientists and community workers, overcame obstacles and through their work fought for social change.

• Nokutela Linderly Dube
• Cecilia Lilian Tshabalala
• Sibusisiwe Violet Makhanya
• Dora Nginza
• Louisa Mvemve
• The Makiwane Sisters: Daisy, Florence and Cecilia
• Nontsikelelo Qwelane
• Zanele Mbeki
• Professor Tebello Nyokong
• Dr Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka

When Mark Gevisser was a little boy, growing up in a apartheid South Africa, he was obsessed with maps, and with the Holmden’s Registry, Johannesburg’s Street Guide, in particular. He played a game called “Dispatcher” with this eccentric guide, transporting himself across the city into places that would otherwise be forbidden him. It was through “Dispatcher” that he discovered apartheid, by realising that he could not find an access route to the neighbouring township of Alexandra, and later, by realising that Soweto was not mapped at all.

This was the beginning of a lifelong obsession with maps and with photographs, and what they tell us about borders and boundaries: how we define ourselves by staying within them, or by transgressing them.

Johannesburg is a place of edges and boundaries; no place for a flaneur: this book is Gevisser's account of getting lost in his home town, and then finding himself, and then getting lost again, as a gay Jewish South African who was raised under apartheid and who became an adult and married a man of a different race as the country moved towards freedom.

Using maps and memories, photographs and stories, Lost And Found In Johannesburg presents a new way of understanding race and sexuality, heritage and otherness. If Gevisser transcended boundaries by playing “Dispatcher” as a boy, his own boundaries were brutally ruptured when he was attacked in a home invasion in January 2012, while completing this book.

Lost And Found In Johannesburg is the story of that journey.

Die ware verhaal van 'n ma se stryd om met onvoorwaardelike liefde te aanvaar dat haar kind gay is. Die skrywer se doel met hierdie boek is om ander gesinne in soortgelyke omstandighede hoop te gee. Sy vertel van die skok wat sy en haar man moes verwerk toe hulle lieflingdogter aankondig sy is verlief op 'n vrou. Lidia Theron beskryf die pad wat hulle moes loop om tot volle aanvaarding te kom.

Juby Mayet was a force of life. Her autobiography takes us from life as a youngster growing up in Fietas, Johannesburg, through marriage, life as a ‘girl reporter’ for first The Golden City Post, then Drum magazine, and on through apartheid and her resistance to it.

Written in her inimitable style, thumbing a nose always at convention or those in authority, it gives a unique insight into one of the only women writers at Drum – and one who could drink just as hard as Can Themba or Nat Nakasa.

Bulelwa Mabasa was born into a ‘matchbox’ family home in Meadowlands, Soweto, at the height of apartheid. In My Land Obsession, she shares her colourful Christian upbringing, framed by the lived experiences of her grandparents, who endured land dispossession in the form of the Group Areas Act and the migrant labour system.

Bulelwa’s world was irrevocably altered when she encountered the disparities of life in a white-dominated school. Her ongoing interest in land justice informed her choice to study law at Wits, with the land question becoming central in her postgraduate studies. When Bulelwa joined the practice of law in the early 2000s as an attorney, she felt a strong need to build on her curiosity around land reform, moving on to form and lead a practice centred on land reform at Werksmans Attorneys. She describes the role played by her mentors and the professional and personal challenges she faced.

My Land Obsession sets out notable legal cases Bulelwa has led and lessons that may be drawn from them, as well as detailing her contributions to national policy on land reform and her views on how the land question must be inhabited and owned by all South Africans.

As a schoolboy at the age of thirteen, Magnus Malan had already run away to join what was then the Union Defence Force. This was to no avail, of course, but ever since he was permitted to join the Physical Training Battalion in 1946, for a period of some 45 years, his career and life has been closely entwined with the South African Defence Force. Malan's military career took him to many places in Southern Africa: Robben Island, the former South West Africa, where the Territorial Force was charged with protecting the South African Mandate territory, to the Military Academy in Saldanha and the Castle in Cape Town. As Chief of the Army and later Chief of the Defence Force he was closely involved in South Africa's incursion into Angola in 1975 and 1976, and also in many cross-border operations in the years thereafter. Malan then entered politics, and will be particularly remembered as Minister of Defence during the troubled 1980s. Malan offers a brief account of the influence that political developments in Southern Africa since 1960 had on the structures and functions of the South African Defence Force; on the successes of Armscor, and on South Africa's nuclear arms capability. He also provides valuable context for a period of many political and military events; a period of immense importance to the present generation and their descendants, but which has become almost forgotten. The title pays tribute to all those who contributed to the successes of the South African Defence Force and Armscor in a critical era of our history.

It's been two decades since the fall of apartheid, a quarter century since the liberation of Eastern European states, five decades since the death of American "Jim Crow," and seventy-plus years since the beginning of the emancipation of the African states. Freedom has advanced, yet there are some Black people in South Africa, the United States, and other parts around the globe who question if it has advanced far enough and are embittered.

I am a Black woman born to the racist apartheid regime of South Africa. My family suffered the slights of apartheid--petty and grand-as well as the poverty, degradation, street violence, lack of opportunity, and other ills of the system. In telling my story, as well as the stories of some of my friends and teachers, I share my perspective on the issues I have grappled with-including choice, identity, forgiveness, and humanity--with those who are wrestling with similar issues in the United States, my adopted home country, and in South Africa, the country of my birth. Deprivation and marginalization are, after all, as hurtful and debilitating in inner city Baltimore as they are in Soweto, and making a deliberate decision to move forward in the face of either, or both, is always powerful, no matter what your address or particular circumstances.

Lindi was born in Soweto to anti-apartheid activist forebears. Her dad was murdered and her paternal granddad exiled as part of the struggle. Lindi's maternal granddad fought for the dignity of the oppressed, while her female forebears taught her the importance of making good lifestyle choices. Lindi earned four degrees from the University of the Witwatersrand and Boston University, is qualified as an attorney in South Africa, and is a finance professional at Amazon's headquarters in Seattle.

‘. . . it is nine months this evening since I last saw the light in my own house, when I had to tear myself away from all that is dear to me. And today is also my little son’s birthday. Oh, how I long for home.’

So wrote Michael Muller in 1901 as he gazed at the lights of Cape Town from a ship bound for Bermuda, after months of internment in a British POW camp in Simon’s Town. The camps were full, so Boer prisoners were being sent to other parts of the empire. Michael’s brothers, Chris and Pieter, were exiled to Ceylon, while Lool was held in the Green Point camp in Cape Town.

Remarkably, three of the brothers kept diaries – the only known instance of this happening in the Boer War. They recorded their intimate thoughts and turbulent emotions, and the diaries gave them agency. The scrawled notes of Chris on the evening after the legendary Magersfontein battle, the rain-dashed pages written by Lool in Colesberg, and the angry words penned by Michael about his treatment at Surrender Hill, have the urgency of men determined to go on record.

When Beverley Roos-Muller first began to explore writing about the Boer experience of the war, she read the tiny war diary of Michael, grandfather of her husband, Ampie Muller. It led her to the discovery of the other diaries and many more documents. She also records the brothers’ difficult return home and examines the consequences for South Africa of the bitterness this strife invoked.

This is a beautifully told account of the fellowship of four brothers in war, their capture and their eventual recovery.

Alhoewel hierdie twee persone betreklik onbelangrik was in die geskiedenis van die vroee Kaap, is hulle lewens goed gedokumenteer en slaag Karel Schoeman daarin om 'n verbasend omvattende en interessante beeld te herskep van die lewe onder die hoer Kaapse amptenary in die vroee agttiende eeu.

In 2011 the world was shocked when the news broke that Joost van der Westhuizen, known for years as the golden boy of South African rugby and a former Springbok captain, had been diagnosed with motor neuron disease (MND).

This rare condition attacks the central nervous system, causing progressive disability. There is no known cure. All who have seen Joost in action will know that he is not one to give up without a fight. His game-changing prowess as a brilliant scrum half is now focused on a battle for survival and, more importantly, on making a difference to the lives of others with the disease. In a race against time, Joost has a dream to fulfil. He says: “In the beginning you go through all the emotions and you ask, ‘Why me?’ It’s quite simple. ‘Why not me?’ If I have to go through this to help future generations, why not me?” His acceptance of his symptoms is equally pragmatic: “One day you can’t move your arm, another day you don’t have speech. Every day you are reborn and you take the day as it comes.”

Glory Game – The Joost van der Westhuizen Story is a compelling narrative of redemption set against the backdrop of an illustrious career in rugby. It is the story of a modern-day warrior forced to face his own human frailty. Joost shows us that beyond ambition, success and fame lies the true wealth of family and friends, and that within a ravaged body the spirit can remain invincible.

What I saw during the time I was employed at the Pass Office – I mean the ill- treatment of Africans – affected my heart and stirred my soul ... I would be of some service to my down-trodden people.

Richard Victor Selope Thema was voorsitter van die komitee wat ’n nuwe grondwet vir die South African Native National Congress opgestel het, die eerste redakteur van The Bantu World (nou The Sowetan) en lid van die Native Representative Council (NRC). Thema was in 1919 ook een van die eerste swart mans wat Engeland besoek het om voorspraak te maak vir swart Suid-Afrikaners.

Die boek, in Thema se eie woorde, beskryf sy vroeë lewe en volg sy denke en skryfwerk van radikaal na pasifis – Thema het geglo dat amper enigiets met onderhandeling en gesprek opgelos kan word en nie almal in die ANC het met hom saamgestem nie. Hy is ’n intellektuele voorvader van beide die ANC-jeugliga en die Pan-Afrikane van die 1950’s, en een van die vergete leiers van die ANC.