Waarom "haak mense se koppe uit"?

Chris Mahlangu, wat vir Eugene Terre'Blanche vermoor het, het hom nie net doodgeslaan nie. Daar is berig dat Terre'Blanche se liggaam 28 keer met 'n ysterpyp, 'n afgebreekte stuk staaldiefwering, geslaan en gekap is. Dit terwyl hy op sy rug gele en slaap het. Dit was 'n bloedbad. Een jong man slaan 'n verpleegster met 'n stuk hout in die veld dood en haar kerel tot in die hospitaal se waakeenheid. 'n Ander slaan beide sy aanneemouers bewusteloos met 'n krieketkolf en dan steek hy hulle meer as 20 keer elk in die bors met 'n mes voor hy sy pa keelaf sny. 'n Manlike prostituut slaan sy vriend soveel keer met 'n knopkierie oor sy "onsedelike voorstelle" dat die sterf aan 'n skedelbreuk. Waarom sal 'n heteroseksuele man wat by prostitute slaap 'n seun by winkelsentrum oplaai en met hom lol?

Vyf gevallestudies oor Suid-Afrikaanse geweldsmisdadigers, vertel deur ervare ware misdaadskrywer Carla van der Spuy en kliniese sielkundige dr Henk Swanepoel. Die boek bevat inligting oor persoonlikheidsversteurings, elke misdadiger se agtergrond, die dag van die misdaad, die hofsaak, onderhoude en bevindings tydens die verhoor, tot die opvolgtronkbesoek - van aangesig tot aangesig met die oortreder.

As National Director of Public Prosecutions from 2005 until 2007, Advocate Vusi Pikoli pursued criminal charges against the current President of South Africa Jacob Zuma and the convicted former National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi. It was his dogged determination to bring the country's top cop to account that ultimately saw Pikoli removed from office and a public inquiry into his suspension held. My Second Initiation traces Pikoli's journey from his first graduation to manhood in the hills of the Eastern Cape, to his second in the corridors of power in government. Pikoli has a deeply ingrained loyalty to the Constitution of the country and a keenly developed sense of justice, cultivated on the politically aware streets and rugby fields of New Brighton township. He recounts how he fled with his ANC unit into exile and spent fourteen years away from his home and his family, suffering the loss of a child and a man he considered a brother.

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.

Lionel `Rusty' Bernstein was arrested at Liliesleaf Farm, Rivonia, on 11 July 1963 and tried for sabotage, alongside Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and other leaders of the African National Congress and Umkhonto we Sizwe in what came to be known as the Rivonia Trial.

He was acquitted in June 1964, but was immediately rearrested. After being released on bail, he fled with his wife Hilda into exile, followed soon afterwards by their family. This classic text, first published in 1999, is a remarkable man's personal memoir of a life in South African resistance politics from the late 1930s to the 1960s.

In recalling the events in which he participated, and the way in which the apartheid regime affected the lives of those involved in the opposition movements, Rusty Bernstein provides valuable insights into the social and political history of the era.

With a career spanning over 40 years, Marah Louw is counted among South Africa’s musical and entertainment industry royalty and has a powerful and memorable story to tell. This book is the reader’s front-row ticket to the joys, sadness, triumphs and setbacks that have been part of this legend’s life. Even though she is a celebrity, her story aims to show that stars, no matter how bright, are human too. It also delves into her family secrets and her search for truth.

As one of South Africa’s most iconic entertainers, Marah has had an illustrious career. She performed at the Mandela Concert at London’s Wembley Stadium and she sang at the Newsmaker of the Year Awards, presented to Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk, and in honour of the late Chris Hani. She appeared with Nelson Mandela during his visit to Glasgow in 1993 and sang at George Square and The Royal Concert Hall. In 1994, she sang at the inauguration of President Nelson Mandela and the Freedom Day Celebrations at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.

In 2001, Marah produced the successful musical concert Surf, which featured top South African artists including Hugh Masekela. Marah translated the music of The Lion King into Zulu for the Walt Disney Corporation and performed the theme song Circle of Life in Zulu. She was also an Idols judge from 2003 until 2010.

She had a lead role on the SABC2 television soap opera Muvhango and has acted in numerous musicals, stage plays and feature films. She is currently acting in the Mzansi Magic telenovela The Queen.

From 2005 to 2009, the heir to one of South Africa’s blue-blood families methodically constructed the largest-ever con in South African history. Barry Tannenbaum, the grandson of the founder of one of the country’s biggest pharmaceutical firms, Adcock Ingram, offered investors stratospheric returns of more than 200 per cent a year by investing in the components used to make AIDS drugs. It was nothing more than a lie, which suckered the country’s business elite, including the former CEO of Pick n Pay, the one-time head of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and the ex-boss of OK Bazaars.

After the bubble popped in June 2009, finance minister Pravin Gordhan announced that hundreds of investors in South Africa, Australia and Europe had ploughed more than R12.5 billion into Tannenbaum’s scheme, based on the empty promise of immense riches. Dwarfing the Brett Kebble rip-off, Fidentia and the Krion pyramid scheme, it proved to be the most embarrassing financial disaster in the country’s history, and it exposed holes in a banking and financial system billed as one of the safest in the world.

For Tannenbaum’s victims, the nightmare continued after the scheme collapsed, as liquidators, tax officials and criminal investigators demanded their pound of flesh. But Tannenbaum, now at large on Australia’s Gold Coast, continues to live as if nothing happened, working for an Australian insurance company.

The question that hasn’t been answered until now is, how did Tannenbaum swindle so many people with such ease? And, more crucially, why did he do it? Through extensive interviews with his family, friends and numerous ‘investors’, this book provides the startling answers to those questions. For the first time, the real motivation that fueled South Africa’s Bernie Madoff is laid bare.

Bill Freund, the late social historian and leading analyst of African history, passed away in 2020 soon after finishing his autobiography. Often described as the academy’s ‘outsider insider’, he was an eminent South African historian who published prodigiously in the areas of labour, capital and economic history. What influenced this American-educated academic to become such an astute and trusted observer of the political economy in Africa?

In this deeply introspective autobiography, we follow Bill’s intellectual journey from a modest Jewish home in Chicago in the 1950s – where new vistas were opened up through voracious reading, inspiring teachers and intellectual engagement – to the Universities of Chicago, Yale, Ahmadu Bello, Dar es Salaam and Harvard, and finally to a permanent teaching position at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa in 1985. Freund begins with his family’s fascinating history in Habsburg Austria, describes émigré life in the USA, and provides astute reflections on his teaching experiences. Peppered in between the commentaries on academic life are stories of his travels, poems he wrote for loved ones, and endearing anecdotes of friendships that shaped his life.

Freund offers rich insights into the world of Africanists and their scholarship on different continents, as well as thoughtful and balanced observations on late- and post-apartheid South Africa. His autobiography reveals the intellectual man and the world that shaped him – and which he in turn influenced through a deep commitment to rigorous scholarship. It includes a select bibliography of his many publications as well as a foreword by Robert Morrell on the making of this book.

Theophilus Shepstone is recognised as one of the key figures in the history of colonial Africa. He is credited with developing some of the essential and widely copied features of colonial administration, including indirect rule, customary law and segregation.

And yet he is also one of colonialism’s most enigmatic personalities: fighting for and against Africans and colonists, admired by some, hated by others, but hiding his thoughts and his feelings with an intimidating and silent public persona.

In this book Jeff Guy uses biography and history to break this silence and examine the man and his politics as they evolved in the conflicted and violent history of colonial Natal. He questions long-established and widely held views of Shepstone and his policies, showing that unless he is placed firmly in the context of the histories of the Africans with whom he worked, he cannot be understood.

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.

During the years of apartheid rule in South Africa, many women 'skipped' the country and fled into exile to evade harassment, detention, imprisonment, and torture by state security forces. Leaving the country of their birth, many took calculated though dangerous risks to cross borders. Once in exile, sometimes for several decades, many women experienced discrimination, danger, deprivations, and the stress associated with being a foreigner in a strange land. All lived with the distant yet distinct hope that they would one day be able to return to a liberated homeland. In Prodigal Daughters, edited by Lauretta Ngcobo, 18 women tell their intensely personal stories of exile. They relive a past for the sake of fixing into memory narratives that would surely disappear in a country still struggling to shake off the shackles of racial inequality and oppression. Stories of being accepted or rejected in host countries and stories of homecoming, read like bittersweet memories of survival, longing, and intrigue. For many of these women, a life in exile enabled their growing realization that apartheid was just one facet of oppression in the world. It connected with much broader struggles for justice and human rights. South Africa has yet to fully appreciate the memories and records of life experienced in that 'desert of exile, ' experiences that have helped society become what it is today. Prodigal Daughters includes a full color illustrated section with photographs of the book's contributors during their life in exile, as well as more recent photographs. Editor Lauretta Ngcobo returned to South Africa in 1994 after 31 years in exile. She was the winner of the literary lifetime achievement award from the South African Department of Arts and Culture in 2006 and the winner of the Order of Ikhamanga from The Presidency of South Africa for excellent achievement in the field of literature in 2008.

Born into a perfect family, by 16, Jacqui Burnett wants to kill her father. With his gun.

Decades later, in her early ‘40s, Jacqui believes she has left her turbulent past and the trauma of eight near-death experiences behind her. On the surface, she has everything she’s ever dreamed of – an education, success and a wonderful husband. What Jacqui doesn’t know is that she’s about to lose everything.

"I was about to step into a board meeting but instead I slid from my office chair and cowered under my desk, sobbing. As managing director, I was meant to announce a year of outstanding results; instead, I was paralysed."

In a desperate search for answers, Jacqui travels to America. Alone in the Rocky Mountains, her life starts unravelling and the truth of her chaotic childhood begins to emerge. In her confused attempts to find love and meaning, Jacqui has to face death one more time, along with an avalanche of unexpected obstacles, before rising from the ashes to heal.

My father, the monster of the Springs house of horrors

“I kneel on the foot piece next to the bed and lower my head. A piercing, burning pain engulfs my entire face. Dad has kicked me. Blood is gushing from my nose. Then I feel cold water being poured all over my body. Electrical wires shock me, I can’t see through the blood. God, help me.” (Translated)

Landi is the eldest of five children who were rescued from the so-called Springs house of horror. She is now 21 years old and tells her astonishing story for the very first time. In May 2014, police raided the house where a sadistic father had imprisoned, abused and tortured his wife and five children in a rat-infested den of sleaze.

In chilling detail, Landi recalls how their father assaulted them by tasering them, shooting them with a gas pistol and burning them with a blowtorch, how he researched torture methods and nearly drowned them in a bathtub.

She relates her memories to Susan Cilliers, an experienced journalist, who documents it with compassion, skilfully combining it with facts that emanated from the police investigation and court case.

House of Horrors is the shocking tale of a father who took everything from his family in the cruellest possible way, but it is also a story of hope about a brave young girl who eventually finds happiness and healing.

WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR In '70s' South Africa, Rian Malan - descendant of the architects of apartheid, middle-class white boy, friend to blacks - went to work as a crime reporter for a local Johannesburg rag. There he encountered first-hand the horrors wrought by apartheid: the poverty, injustice and violence. After an eight-year exile, he returned to write this book. With gripping stories and in mesmerising prose, this is Malan's attempt to understand his country, its racial hatred, and his own tortured conscience.

Extraordinary stories can sometimes be found in ordinary letters. This is the discovery that awaits readers of this gentle and beautifully written correspondence between a political prisoner and a self-described housewife during apartheid's last decade. The circumstances of loss prompting Rivonia trialist Ahmed Kathrada to write a letter of sympathy to a former flat-mate Abdulhak "Bis" Bismillah are met with an unexpected reply from Bis's sister. Zuleikha Mayat, a Durban community organiser and editor of the best-selling cookbook Indian Delights, initiates a correspondence with Kathrada that continues until his release ten years later. Virtual strangers, they have in common their small-town Transvaal childhoods in Muslim shops in the early 20th century; and they find much to explore in their different approaches to questions of culture, politics and religion. The letters are written with wit and style, as they discuss both the issues of the day and the sustenance found in memory. These letters tell the story, all the more powerful for its ephemeral character, of a developing epistolary friendship between two people to whom history has brought different gains and losses. The collection is rich not merely in historical content and stylistic interest, but in the experience it offers to the reader of an unfolding conversation, reflecting both the immediate worlds of its authors and a tumultuous period of South African history.

As a sangoma (traditional healer), Nkunzi is able to explore dimensions of her sexual identity because of her relationship with both male and female ancestors.

‘In Zulu culture a man must be a man and do male things and a woman must be a woman and do female things but with sangomas it is more flexible. I can dance like a woman and wear a woman’s clothes and dance like a man and wear a man’s clothes. I can do the work of a man, like slaughtering a goat or a cow although in traditional Zulu culture a woman cannot slaughter …’

Conscious of her constitutional rights as an urban young lesbian in a time of a relentless spate of hate crimes against township lesbians, Nkunzi is simultaneously sensitive to the demands of the guiding ancestral voice of the traditional, rural Zulu patriarch whose name she bears. Her quest is for a middle path of balance and integration between the living and the dead, the traditional and the modern.

Patriots & Parasites, completed just days before Smuts’s unexpected death in 2016, is her account of the momentous period known as the Transition Era, through the lens of her 25-year career as a key opposition MP and a respected legislator.

With ambitious breadth and rare insight, she examines:

• The arduous but exhilarating work of writing the Constitution and the Bill of Rights
• The great experiment in catharsis that was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
• The reinvigoration of racial polarisation under the Mbeki administration, and the slow burn of resentment that is coming to a head among the next generation (as manifested in the #RhodesMustFall campaign)
• The entrenchment of cronyism under Zuma, and the fight to protect the crucial balance of accountability enshrined in the freedom of the media and the independence of the judiciary

Jan Smuts, one of the most infamous South Africans of the twentieth century remains a controversial figure. Was he one of the outstanding statesmen of his time or was he perhaps a traitor of Afrikaner interests and possibly a racist? Today there are still strong opinions on Smuts’s role.

Like Paul Kruger at the end of the nineteenth century, and Nelson Mandela as the twentieth century drew to a close, it was Jan Smuts who stood head and shoulders above his contemporaries in the first half of the twentieth century; he was a leader of extraordinary stature and his statesmanship is recognised internationally. And yet, the NP and ANC governments have downplayed his contributions for decades, because it did not endorse their Afrikaner and black nationalist versions of South African history. A reappraisal of Smuts will fill a gap in the literature on the history of South Africa in the first half of the twentieth century. Many of the biographies and other works on Smuts appeared during his lifetime or soon after his death. Today, a few generations later, we have a better perspective on his contributions within the historical context of his time. New evidence continues to come to light, making it possible to reach a more informed opinion on questions about Smuts, issues which previously could not be answered conclusively.

The purpose of the book, written almost three generations after his death, is to recall and re-evaluate Smuts’s contributions in various fields and in this way introduce him to the younger generation. It is important that Smuts be judged in the context of his particular time and circumstances. As far as his outlook on war and peace, civilisation, race and class differences, the capitalist system and South Africa’s place in the wider world are concerned, Smuts was certainly a product of his time. It would be unfair to measure him and his contemporaries against today’s norms and values. To do justice to him, his supporters, as well as his opponents and critics, due consideration should be accorded to how they lived, thought and reasoned in that era.

What does it take to row 5,500km across an Ocean? Or to trek 500 miles through Antarctica? How do we achieve incredible things?

Peter van Kets has done this and more – and yet he could be the average guy next door. A teacher in East London with a fondness for the ocean, Peter was given a rare chance to compete in the 2007 Atlantic Rowing Race. His decision to grasp this opportunity would change his life.

Together with Bill Godfrey, he rowed across the Atlantic and won against the odds. Then he came back two years later to row it alone – a truly epic feat. After that he joined forces with adventure runner Braam Malherbe to represent South Africa in the unique Scott-Amundsen Centenary Race to the South Pole, one of the most gruelling endurance events ever staged.

Peter’s feats of endurance in the face of endless ice, snow and saltwater are testament to the power of the human spirit and the greatness possible when an ordinary person sets out to do extraordinary things. In rowing the Atlantic and trekking the Antarctic, he has come to understand what it takes to conquer the limits of your mind – to conquer your Eighth Summit.

Mandela's Kinsmen is the first study of the fraught relationships between the ANC and their relatives inside apartheid's first 'tribal' Bantustan.

Timothy Gibbs reinterprets the complex connections between nationalist elites and the chieftaincies, and overlapping ideologies of national and ethnic belonging. In South Africa, like the rest of the continent, the chieftaincies had often been well-springs of African leadership in the early 20th century, producing leaders such as Nelson Mandela, who hailed from the 'Native Reserves' of rural Transkei. But then the apartheid government turned South Africa's chieftaincies into self-governing, tribal Bantustans in order to shatter African nationalism, starting with Transkei in 1963.

Drawing on a wealth of first-hand accounts and untapped archives, Mandela's Kinsmen offers a vividly human account of how the Bantustan era ruptured rural society. Nevertheless, Gibbs uncovers the social and political institutions and net- works that connected the nationalist leadership on Robben Island and in exile to their kinsmen inside the Transkei. Even at the climax of the apartheid era - when interlocking nationalist insurgencies spiralled into ethnically based civil wars across South Africa and the southern African region - elite connections still straddled Bantustan divides.

These relationships would shape the apartheid endgame and forge the post-apartheid policy.

A rainbow is synonymous with bravery, brightness, brilliance and vibrancy. In the Bible it is a symbol of God's faithfulness and mercy. Everybody has a story, and in this short memoir, Ronnie van der Merwe tells his story.

Ronnie wants readers who feel that they are different and do not belong, to see that it is OK to be yourself and be comfortable in your skin. Ronnie's trip to Germany as an au-pair led to his personal freedom but it was not always easy.

He shares the good and the bad and wants readers to see that life is beautiful and precious; and that nothing and nobody should keep you from being your authentic self!

Francois Stephanus Malan (1871-1940), an Afrikaner newspaper editor and politician, is one of the most complex figures in South African history. In an era of racism, oppression and exploitation when whites regarded blacks as a barbarous threat to their supremacy he refused to pander to these fears. With the fervour of an Old Testament prophet he argued that white survival could be secured only through the extension of equal political rights to all races.

Yet he was also an Afrikaner nationalist, playing a leading role in the Cape Colony defending the volk’s interests against British domination. But he desired a united, stable and prosperous South Africa in which, free of internal British control, Afrikaners and English-speakers could overcome their enmity and become one nation.

According to the author the purpose of the book is to create a portrait, focusing on the facts that reveal his personality and the essence of his career ― his liberalism, religious belief and progressive theological views, his Afrikaner nationalism and desire to create a South African nation by reconciling Afrikaners and English-speakers, as well as his anti-capitalist views.

From heavy metal music bands to monobrows and mood swings, this story is about navigating adolescence in a foreign country, surrounded by other teenagers from varying backgrounds and cultures.

Gabi writes about her life - her experiences and the emotional fallout - after her family moved to Saudi Arabia from Johannesburg when she was twelve years old. Her story reflects the difficulties of growing up in culturally foreign environments and the long term mental health consequences of bullying as she fought to find her sense of self.

You don't have to live in Saudi to be able to relate to some of these stories. The issues are universal, and this story is just one contribution to the conversation.

The first biography of its kind about Desmond Tutu (with a foreword by the Dalai Lama and an afterword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu himself), this book introduces readers to Tutu’s spiritual life, his prayer life and his spiritual practices and examines how it shaped his commitment to restorative justice and reconciliation. It also shows how a living legend’s life can guide us during these times.

Desmond Tutu was a pivotal leader of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and remains a beloved and important emblem of peace and justice around the world. Even those who do not know the major events of Tutu’s life—receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, serving as the first black archbishop of Cape Town and primate of Southern Africa from 1986−1996, and chairing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission from 1995−1998—recognize him as a charismatic political and religious leader who helped lay the foundations for a country ravaged by dehumanizing policies and practices by those who called themselves “Christian”. This book shows how the inner landscape of Tutu’s spirituality, the mystical grounding that spurred his outward accomplishments, often goes unseen.

Rather than recount his entire life story, this book explores Tutu’s spiritual life and contemplative practices—particularly Tutu’s understanding of Ubuntu theology, which emphasizes finding one’s identity and wholeness in community—and traces the powerful role they played in subverting the theological and spiritual underpinnings of colonialism and apartheid. Michael Battle’s personal relationship with Tutu grants readers an inside view of how Tutu’s spiritual agency cast a vision that both upheld the demands of justice and created a space of grace to synthesize the stark differences of a diverse society and help South Africans build a new community, new “samehorigheid”, and “Ubuntu”.

This book is a chronicle of the political and moral evolution of an Afrikaner within the context of the political evolution of South Africa and how he not only overcame the conservative and biased background of his youth, but was transformed into a revolutionary spokesman for change and a recognition of the injustices of the past.

It is also a realisation that many of the consequences of the Apartheid system are still among us and have not been resolved. Many of these old ghosts which he encountered during his career have to be revisited and confronted.

The author takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the internal political struggles that eventually led to the first fully democratic election in South Africa in 1994 and beyond. His role as a Commissioner of the SA Human Rights Commission since retiring as a politician has exposed him to further realities of the legacy of Apartheid.

It is the story of a courageous politician and a dedicated South African set on a course to make a positive contribution to the future of the country.

After working closely with the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation in shaping and writing his memoir, author Hassen Ebrahim and Jacana Media are proud to publish this important record of a life that was spent in service to South Africa.

Writes Mac Maharaj in his foreword in the book: “Hassen Ebrahim is one of those many seldom heard of foot soldiers of the 1976 generation who joined the underground and was linked to the ANC structures operating from Botswana. He has been at the coalface of so many facets of South Africa’s march to freedom. He was there during the times when involvement in the struggle against apartheid carried the risk of death; he was involved in our negotiated transition to democracy; he was the chief executive of the elected Constitutional Assembly which wrote and adopted our Constitution; thereafter and until 2007 he served in the Department of Justice.”

From Marabastad to Mogadishu: The Journey of an ANC Soldier chronicles an all-too familiar story of those unsung cadres from the struggle we’ve forgotten to honour for their sacrifices. Those foot soldiers do not feature in our collective memory, they do not find themselves or their stories recorded in the pages of history books, and they are not remembered for their selfless acts of bravery.

The bravery and sacrifice of the ordinary teenager who dropped out of school, the cadre who risked life and limb, and the freedom fighter who exiled himself or herself to countries far and wide must be given a chance to live on book pages, find expression on film reels and all other mediums of historic memory collection.

From Marabastad to Mogadishu: The Journey of an ANC Soldier signals the resolve by the author, his peers, Jacana Media and support organisations such as the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation to bring the ordinary cadre’s story to the fore, to acknowledge his or her sacrifices, and to recognise their contribution to South Africa’s democracy.