In his memoir, Jaki Seroke shares the joys and the sorrows of his life, starting with his childhood in Alex, where he is born as ‘a poor mother’s son’. He recalls the political battles among the various Africanist groupings, his incarceration on the Island and his later work at Skotaville Press, as publisher and poet.

After 1994, having decided that parliamentary politics were not for him, he joined the corporate sector and committed to a new kind of struggle.

Die legendariese Wit Boesman, Peter Stark, skryf onderhoudend oor sy belewenisse in die destydse Duits-Suidwes-Afrika. Eers as plaasbestuurder en leeuvanger van formaat (wat Natuurbewaring by Etosha grys hare gegee het) en later self as natuurbewaarder, het hy ’n formidabele kennis van die veld, die San, die wild en die mense opgedoen. Hierdie kennis spreek mee in die staaltjies en verhale oor sy ervarings, opgeskryf in die gesellige trant eie aan Namibie. Peter Stark is in Duits-Suidwes-Afrika (vandag Namibie) gebore en was vir baie jare natuurbewaarder in die Okaukuejo-omgewing. As ware seun van die veld het Peter hom onderskei as onverskrokke grootwildjagter, uitnemende ruiter en spoorsnyer van formaat. Hy het in 1974 by die destydse Suid-Afrikaanse Weermag aangesluit as kommandant in die rykunsvleuel, waar hy 'n enorme bydrae gelewer het tot die opleiding van ruiters. Vandag woon op die plaas Vogelsang naby Ventersdorp.

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

These books were made possible with the support of Biblionef and funding from the National Arts Council.

Maqoma was the most renowned Xhosa chief of South Africa’s 19th century Cape-Xhosa Wars and arguably one of Africa’s greatest resistance leaders of the colonial period. He was a man of considerable intellect and eloquence, striving to maintain traditional social structures and the power of the Xhosa royalty in the face of colonial depredations and dispossession.

When accommodation and diplomacy failed, Maqoma led Xhosa forces in three separate wars against the British-ruled Cape Colony. Evidence suggests that Maqoma made covert attempts to undermine the Nongqawuse Cattle Killing prophecies of 1856-57 which brought devastation on the Xhosa nation. Imprisoned on Robben Island for 12 years, Maqoma was paroled in 1869. When he attempted to resettle on his stolen land, however, he was re-banished to the infamous island prison, where he died under mysterious circumstances in 1873. And yet his name lives on.

In vivid prose the author records the life of a leader of exrtaordinary tenacity, flexibility, political and martial skills, who tragically became the victim of colonial domination.

Ronnie Kasrils's memoir reflects on compelling questions as to what turned a white youngster from a modest background into a lifelong revolutionary of note. A tiny minority who abandoned a life of privilege were the antithesis of conventionality and toeing the line. What made those such as Kasrils break all the rules and confront white power with such courage, unbridled spirit and yearning for the truth? This is a challenging and fascinating conundrum but Kasrils will claim he is no aberration of history. The answers to that question, which unravel through twenty years, will beguile readers as he peers back with endearing frankness into the origins and experiences of his formative years. A Yeoville-born boykie with Yiddish roots; heartfelt empathy for the underdog; an instinctive rejection of authoritarianism in school and wider society were influences informing his adult life as revolutionary activist. With a remarkable memory and flair for the written and spoken word the narrative revels in the social, sexual and political awakening of a roguish boy's adventures with girls, rock music, bohemian culture and leaping across the colour barrier. Kasrils's tadpoles of the memoir's title represent the submerged often illusive tracts of memory he searches for as he delves into the mystery of his metamorphosis. This stylistic element adds to the creativity of this fourth memoir.

'n Biografie van die bekroonde skrywer Jeanne Goosen, met foto's, briewe en bydraes van vriende wat vertel hoe hulle dié ikoniese figuur ken. Die skrywer, Petrovna Metelerkamp, is die 2019-wenner van die ATKV-Veertjie vir nie-fiksie vir Ingrid Jonker - 'n Biografie. Die boek bevat materiaal wat voorheen ontoeganklik was en beloof om ure se leesgenot te verskaf aan die duisende aanhangers van die digter-dramaturg en skrywer van Ons is nie almal so nie.

A story for men and boys about never coming of age. And for women who want to know why.

Gareth has published half a dozen novels, made a horror film, run a 90 kilometre race in which he bled through his shoes, successfully failed to play right wing for Manchester United, attempted the Olympics at 38, wrestled a ghost, been the spokesperson for a company whose head office exploded, been run over by a Honda, survived two almost plane crashes and is currently filming a superhero TV show.

And yet Gareth’s story is also your story. It’s about the small moments and the big events that make up a life. About the few victories and the many defeats, the adventures and the calamities. The missteps and the madness. From his bumbling days at school, to fumbled encounters with girlfriends and disasters on the sports field and in the office … this is a story for boys and men everywhere. And for women, of course, because contained within these pages are vital clues as to what makes the male mind tick.

This isn’t just Gareth’s story – it’s everyone’s.

Hierdie is Ina Bonnette se eie weergawe van die wrede aanval en marteling deur die Modimolle Monster wat opslae gemaak het toe hy en drie handlangers haar ontvoer het.

Ina: Verhaal Van Genade En Genesing is die merkwaardige verhaal van ’n oorwinnaar, ’n vrou wat wreed oorval en gemartel is deur haar eksman en sy handlangers. Ina moes nie net die onmenslike trauma, pyn en lewensveranderende gevolge van daardie dag verduur nie, sy het ook haar seun aan die dood afgestaan toe hy deur haar aanvaller vermoor is.

Hierdie is haar verhaal van oorlewing, genade en uiteindelike genesing.

A riveting memoir of the Great War from a uniquely African perspective.

The author helped suppress a rebellion in South Africa, defeat German West Africa, fight in German East Africa, and fight in France, where he commanded a Scottish battalion at the end of the war.

King George V told the author in later years that he kept this book at his bedside in Windsor Castle.

More than 125 years ago, a remarkable group of people came together in Cape Town to write down the language and beliefs of the |xam people, a Bushman group that once lived over much of South Africa. The immensely valuable work of Wilhelm Bleek, Lucy Lloyd and their |xam teachers not only preserved a language now no longer spoken, but also provided fascinating insights into |xam cosmology.

First published in 2004, Customs and Beliefs of the |xam reproduces Dorothea Bleek's selection of |xam narratives from the well-known Bleek and Lloyd Collection that was originally published in the journal Bantu Studies during the 1930s. Collated and edited by Jeremy Hollman, the extracts include detailed notes on each of the narratives, as well as Bleek's 'sketch' of |xam grammar.

This substantially revised second edition integrates new scholarship on the Bleek and Lloyd archive, and restores previously omitted material. The introduction to each narrative has been expanded to contextualise it within the archive as a whole and, where relevant, reference it to the Notebook of which it is a part. This includes meticulous cross-referencing with the Bleek and Lloyd Collection catalogue code and the Notebook number and line reference. Each of the texts has also been critically reassessed, with additional editorial notes and commentaries, in particular with respect to the |xam words themselves and the ways in which they have been translated. A synopsis of each narrative is provided in an appendix, with cross references to the Bleek and Lloyd notebooks.

Customs and Beliefs of the |xam, second edition, is an in-depth, detailed and authoritative resource that will be invaluable to scholars, heritage workers and activists alike.

In Sabbatsreis vertel Annelie Botes hoe sy in 2004 blindelings op ’n vliegtuig geklim het om in Engeland ’n ouma te gaan soek wat sy kon oppas. Om haar skuld te betaal. Vir ’n hellejaar (ook met heelwat hemelse oomblikke!) word sy Granny se hoeder.

Maar genoeg is selde genoeg. Kwalik ses maande nadat sy teruggekom het Baai toe, vlieg sy wéér Engeland toe. Dié keer as die goewernante van vier onhebbelike bloubloed-seuntjies. En, soos Aspoestertjie, bevind sy haar in ’n grillerige ou kasteelhuis, en sy is net ’n kasteelbediende. Sy ly honger; sy verkluim. Sy moet haar karige leefruimte deel met die wandelende gees van ’n vrou wat lankal oorlede is, maar steeds snags in die kasteelgange rondloop.

Om vir haar ’n wegkruipplek te skep, rig sy ’n antieke Mercedes-Benz vol muisneste, wat verlate in ’n plaat onkruid staan, in as haar heiligdom. Droomplek. Dinkplek. Huilplek.

Tien jaar later sit sy by haar ou bruin lessenaar en rol die kamera terug na daardie tyd. Bekyk die glasskoentjies wat elke mens langs die pad verloor. Lugkastele wat tuimel. Alles net swaanveertjies in die winterwind. Tog, ondanks ons stukkende vlerke, leer ons vlieg. Hoër en verder as wat ons ooit kon droom.

Soms. Soms nie

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 intimate and personal story behind the man who tried to kill Verwoerd but didn’t succeed.

“The raucous wail of sirens pierced the quiet Saturday afternoon, making me drop my book and rush outside to see what drama was taking place. A fleet of cars, their sirens screaming, roared along Oxford Road two hundred yards from our house. I stood on the lawn wondering what on earth it was because sirens were rarely heard near our home. I went back inside; the commotion was over. But within half an hour our telephone started ringing non-stop . . .”

9 April 1960 was the day that changed Susie Cazenove’s life – the day her father, David Pratt, shot the Prime Minister of South Africa, Dr Hendrik Verwoerd. Verwoerd, commonly known as the architect of apartheid, didn’t die, but Pratt’s family lived with the legacy of his action.

A chance encounter with the late David Rattray of Fugitive’s Drift led Cazenove to revisit the memories of that terrible day. With Rattray’s encouragement she put pen to paper to describe the extraordinary events of that day and its consequences. Part family memoir, part ode to the settlement of Johannesburg, Cazenove skilfully weaves her family history and the mood in South Africa in the 1950s and 60s as a background to what may have led her father, a farmer and gentle man, to commit a treasonous act.

A Long Letter To My Daughter is award-winning South African author Marita van der Vyver's youth memoir.

An unputdownable read that weaves together both love letter, to a daughter, a language and a country, whilst tracing Van der Vyver's early years. Above all, it is a mother's effort to make sense of a world that seems increasingly senseless.

The Voices of Liberation series celebrates the lives and writings of South African and African liberation activists and heroes. The human, social and literary contexts presented in this series have a critical resonance and bearing on where we come from, who we are and how we can choose to shape our destiny. This series ensures that the debates and values that shaped the liberation movement are not lost. The series offers a unique combination of biographical information with selections from original speeches and writings in each volume. By providing access to the thoughts and writings of some of the many men and women who fought for the dismantling of apartheid, colonialism and capitalist legacy, this series invites the contemporary reader to engage directly with the rich history of the struggle for democracy and the restoration of our own identity. The title of the series has been carefully chosen as it speaks to its purpose - which is not only to make a particular voice resonate but to strengthen the voice from the South and Africa in particular. Chris Hani was a key figure in the South African liberation struggle, yet little has been written about this enigmatic leader of the SACP and Chief of Staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe. The year 2013, marks the 20 year anniversary of his assassination and HSRC Press views the publication of this book as extremely important, not only to commemorate his death but to highlight the principles and values for which he stood. As Chief of Staff of Umkhonto we Sizwe, Chris Hani was prepared to support the cessation of the armed struggle in the interests of the negotiations which would benefit the country as a whole; he represents the importance of dialogue and the relationship between identity, agency, citizenship and social action. Chris Hani believed in restoring people to their humanity and the need is now greater perhaps than ever before to hear his voice loud and clear.

What does the national conference of the ANC mean for the average South African? Mandy Rossouw explains, in easy and engaging fashion, how Zuma replaced Mbeki, how we got from the shock at Polokwane to daggers drawn at Mangaung – and who got us here.

Rossouw charts how the national conference will be put together, and why what happens at Mangaung will impact on our every day, whatever our political affiliations.

The personalities focused on:

Jacob Zuma – the incumbent
Kgalema Motlanthe – the contender
Tokyo Sexwale – the smooth operator
Cyril Ramaphosa – the dark horse
Zwelinzima Vavi – Cosatu secretary and kingmaker
Fikile Mbalula – the Razzmatazz showman
Malusi Gigaba – Zuma’s cheerleader-in-chief and a future contender
Julius Malema – and how he changed the ANC for good

Anneli Drummond-Hay's autobiography is a fascinating insight into the making of an equestrian champion through her struggle for survival.

It is a heart-warming story of a war baby with aristocratic connections, who grew up with very little money and even less love. She never went to school, she had no friends growing up, but she did have a gift with the horses in which she sought solace.

The big love story of her life was one particularly special horse, Merely-AMonarch. He was invincible in eventing, but as female eventers were not permitted to compete in the Olympics in that era, Anneli switched to show jumping. She came so close to going to three Olympics but was foiled at the last moment each time, despite winning just about everything else in the sport.

Besides her wonderful horses, Anneli gives an amazing account of the people she met - from Harvey Smith to the Queen, in front of whom she was asked to lend her horse for the British Olympic effort, and refused; to her asking a favour, in person, of Colonel Gaddafi.

The jet-set life of an elite show jumper may be glamorous but there are more lows than highs, whether it's her top ride being stolen, a potential plane disaster above the Alps, or the sudden death of a star horse.

As The Princess Royal so rightly says in the foreword to this book: 'Thank goodness Anneli decided to write her story.'

This is the story of a brave warrior and “a formidable tactician, a masterly politician and a brilliant orator”; a Xhosa Nkosi who destroyed a British Navy troopship that threatened to annihilate his nation in 1852; the story of how the attack was carried out by a few African black Xhosa people.

This is the story of a lone abalone diver who spent scores of hours investigating the wreck of HMS ‘Birkenhead’ between 1958 and 1988. This is the story how the irrefutable evidence of sabotage was found. This is the story of Britain´s mindless invasion into Xhosaland.

This is the lamentable story how one of the bravest African Royals was buried in a pauper´s hole on Robben Island; a disrespect and disgust to the Xhosa Kingdom in general and the amaRharhabe in particular.

A memoir like no other – Claudine Shiels and her sister Lisa van der Merwe have brought South Africa’s oldest sexual abuse case to court. The sisters used the Frankel 8 Criminal Procedures decision to bring court action against their sexually abusive step-uncles forty years later – this is their story.

On a hot summer evening in 1967, eight-year-old Claudine Brown watched from the back seat of a car stalled on a railway track in the suburbs of Cape Town, as a fast-moving train hurtled towards them. Her mother sat frozen with fear in the driver's seat. The events leading up to this moment were unremarkable, giving no clue to their catastrophic timing. The aftermath was brutal and childhood-wrecking, leaving Claudine and her younger sister Lisa world-weary before they had even got started.

When her mother, unraveled by post-traumatic shock, abandoned the family, and her father reached for the nearest comfort to ease his pain – a new wife – Claudine had only one defense against the years of exploitation and physical, emotional and sexual abuse that followed: hope. She remembered what normal life was, and plotted her course back there.

After an extraordinary four-year battle, Gabi Lowe lost her beautiful, talented 20-year-old daughter, Jenna Lowe, on 8 June 2015 to pulmonary arterial hypertension, a rare degenerative lung disease, following a double lung transplant.

Jenna was young, bright and articulate. She was LEAD SA’s Youth Hero of the Year in 2015. Her death was mourned by thousands of people whose lives she had touched. During her short but full life, Jenna and the Lowe family raised much-needed awareness around this rare and devastating disease, highlighting the dire need for access to medication and organ donors locally. Although desperately ill, Jenna became the face for organ donation in South Africa through the hugely successful #GetMeTo21 campaign in which she invited all South Africans to attend her twenty-first birthday celebration by clicking on a link to become an organ donor. Tragically, Jenna died four months before reaching her milestone.

Brilliantly written, riveting in all its terrible truth and pain, in this brutally honest memoir Gabi Lowe shares her family’s desperate fight to save Jenna’s life. Get Me to 21 will inspire us to believe that the ability to face even the darkest, and most unimaginable, lives deep within us all.

King Adz is a grown-up kid whose focus is youth culture. He's a Brit by birth whose heart beats Africa - more particularly Mzansi. In his latest book, a memoir or "non-fiction novel" (according to Adz) the reader is swept along two equally entertaining narrative strands, one set in the present day, the other in the past, which mashed together form the story of King Adz's life - the man also known as "Adam Stone" to the authorities. In the present-day we read of Adz's quest to make some sense of modern South Africa. Adz spends as much time as he can hanging out with a selection of interesting, unusual and creative locals, from Jack Parow to Roger Ballen. He also visits the most interesting places - Portuguese restaurants that are well past their sell-by dates, street culture festivals, and small dorps that are off the map (and "off the hook"!). And through all this is the palpable sense that when Adz is in South Africa, he always feels at home. The backbone of the book tells how Adz came to South Africa, with wife and children, and worked in the world of brands, advertising and digital media. We learn how he "accidentally" became a film director, and might also have fallen into bad company. This is a fascinating, funny chance for South Africans to consider ourselves anew through the eyes of an outsider who has forced himself inside.

Edwin Cameron’s gripping and revealing new book is part memoir and part ode to the law. The book opens at the funeral of Cameron’s sister Laura when he was just seven. His father was accompanied by prison officials, having been briefly let out of prison for the occasion. This was the young Cameron’s first exposure to the law...

In Justice, Cameron explains and defends the role of the law in South Africa’s continuing transition. He draws on his own life experience – of poverty, of a youth spent in a children’s home, of his differentness and of stigma – to illustrate the power and the limitations of the law.

Cameron argues his case – that the Constitution offers South Africans our best chance for a just society – with personal passion, but also with the insights gained from hard years of judicial experience. Published in the run-on to the national election, Justice comes at a critical time in our country.

Margaretha van Hulsteyn (also known as Scrappy) is the daughter of respected Pretoria attorney Sir Willem van Hulsteyn, and she's an aspiring actress. While studying in London after the Great War, Scrappy changes her name to Marda Vanne and enters into a relationship with one of the foremost actresses of her day, Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies.

However, on a visit to her parents in the Union of South Africa, Marda meets Hans Strydom, an attorney and uncompromising radical politician with the soubriquet ‘The Lion of the North’. Their meeting changes the course of her life, at least temporarily… Strydom went on to become a principal progenitor of the harshest discriminatory legislation which endured for decades until his nephew, President FW de Klerk, in a volte-face, dismantled the laws of apartheid.

A work of biographical fiction, The Lion & The Thespian is based on the true story of the marriage of Hans Strydom, prime minister of South Africa from 1954 to 1958, to the actress Marda Vanne. Veteran author David Bloomberg (former executive mayor of Cape Town, and founder of Metropolitan Life), following extensive reading and research, has adhered faithfully to the chronology of the lives of the main protagonists, their personalities and the historical facts with which they were associated. Creative license has allowed Bloomberg to recreate appropriate scenes and dialogue, complemented by reported sources and recorded speeches.

The richly anecdotal story of an extraordinary life – when baby Mamphela was born to teacher parents in the rural village of Kranspoort, few would have predicted that she would become not only a medical doctor, but an international leader and the founder of not one but two new political movements. As a young woman, Mamphela was instrumental in creating the ideology of Black Consciousness with her partner, Steve Biko. As an accomplished and well-off businesswoman who had reached the pinnacle of success, this year she felt compelled to start Agang SA , to provide South African voters with an alternative to the inept and increasingly corrupt ANC.

In this very readable autobiography, Mamphela Ramphele vividly describes her rural childhood, her extended family, her first loves and losses – after the death of her firstborn, she nearly lost her and Steve’s baby after his death by torture – and her subsequent successes in both politics and business.

She exposes what went on behind the scenes in the run-up to the launch of Agang SA, discusses her relationship with a number of prominent South Africans, including Helen Zille, and she shares her vision for a future South Africa of which we can all be proud.

A woman reluctantly takes on the responsibility of putting her eccentric rebellious mother into a retirement home, and managing her care. She has her own daughter to raise and nurture, a marriage and a business to hold together, and her own psychological troubles due in good part to how she was mothered.

My Mother, My Madness is Colleen Higgs’s diary of her mother’s last ten years. It is at once funny, harrowing, mundane, chaotic, and full of insight. It is a rich and moving story which unfolds through its characters like a novel.

Colleen Higgs is the author of two collections of poetry (Halfborn Woman, 2004, and Lava Lamp Poems, 2011) and a short story collection (Looking for Trouble – Yeoville Stories, 2012). She founded Modjaji Books in 2007 and, after publishing more than 150 books, is still Modjaji’s manager and publisher.