Twee vroue, een uit Nederland en die ander een uit die Vrystaatse Goudvelde, ontmoet mekaar in 'n hospitaalsaal in Bloemfontein. Vyftig jaar later vertel Hester die storie van hoe die lewe hulle gevorm het as verpleegsters, gemeenskapswerkers, bakkers en kunstenaars.In hierdie memorie vertel Hester van der Walt van die sleutel oomblikke in haar lewe wat haar daartoe gedryf het om kulturele en etniese grense oor te steek om sodoende uit te vind wie sy werklik is.

Haar besluite neem haar vanaf die Vrystaat na Distrik Ses en Venda, na Nederland en die Verenigde Koninkryk, na Heideveld en Hanover Park en uiteindelik na McGregor. Haar nederige storie vertel van die geestelike isolasie van alle "vlugtelinge" wat die onversoenbare waardes van hulle "tuiste" (hetsy fisies of idologies) verlaat en nuwe maniere moet vind om 'n lewe te skep.

Dit vertel ook van die wonder om 'n metgesel langs die pad te vind.

The Unlikely Mr Rogue is the story of the quiet man behind the so-called ‘rogue unit’ at SARS, who has become a lightning rod for so many in politics today.

It takes the reader on a journey – Ivan’s growing up in Merebank, KZN, his politicisation, his friendship with Pravin Gordhan and his running of Operation Vula from Lusaka, reporting to Oliver Tambo. In some ways, the setting up of SARS was Operation Vula revisited. Many of the same operatives were now working for a higher purpose. And this higher purpose, of providing the money to reduce inequality in the state, was a daily mantra for Gordhan, Pillay and others. They really believed in it.

Groenink tells of the early 1990s in Lusaka, of their falling in love, of the insecurity in coming back to the country, and the times when Ivan was in charge of stationery in the bowels of Shell House. This is the story of a good man, an unlikely man, a quiet man, determined to use SARS to fund the post-liberation nation-building, and his downfall at the hands of his enemies and a scurrilous Sunday Times.

Op 29 April 1963 stuur die 29-jarige digter Ingrid Jonker ’n telegram aan André P. Brink. Sy bedank die 27-jarige skrywer vir blomme en ’n brief wat hy aan haar besorg het. In die meer as tweehonderd skrywes wat hierna tussen die twee volg, ontvou sekerlik die bekendste liefdesverhouding in die Afrikaanse literêre geskiedenis. Jonker se finale brief aan Brink is gedateer 18 April 1965 – drie maande voordat sy die see in loop by Drieankerbaai.

’n Halfeeu later word lesers se verbeelding steeds aangegryp deur die hartstog van dié teer, dikwels stormagtige verhouding.

In Desember 2014, drie maande voor sy dood, het André P. Brink die liefdesbriewe tussen hom en Ingrid Jonker vir publikasie aangebied. Die briewe is nog nooit voorheen gepubliseer nie en sluit onbekende persoonlike foto’s in.

While African National Congress narratives dominate much of the scholarship on South Africa’s freedom struggle, Josie Mpama/Palmer’s political life offers a different perspective. Highly critical of the patriarchal attitudes that hindered black women from actively participating in politics, Mpama/Palmer was an outspoken advocate for women’s social equality and encouraged black women to become more involved in national conversations.

The first black woman to join the Communist Party of South Africa and an antiapartheid activist, Josie Mpama/Palmer remained involved in critical issues all her life, especially protests against Bantu Education and other forms of racial and sexist discrimination. She was an integral figure in establishing the Federation of South African Women, an organization open to women of all races.

Mpama/Palmer’s activism and political legacy would become an inspiring example for women in South Africa and around the world to get up and get moving.

More than a million black South African women are domestic workers. These nannies, housekeepers and chars continue to occupy a central place in in postapartheid society. But it is an ambivalent position. Precariously situated between urban and rural areas, rich and poor, white and black, these women are at once intimately connected and at a distant remove from the families they serve. ‘Like family’ they may be, but they and their employers know they can never be real family.

Ena Jansen shows that domestic worker relations in South Africa were shaped by the institution of slavery at the Cape. This established social hierarchies and patterns of behaviour and interaction that persist to the present day, and are still evident in the predicament of the black female domestic worker.

To support her argument, Jansen examines the representation of domestic workers in a diverse range of texts in English and Afrikaans. Authors include André Brink, JM Coetzee, Imraan Coovadia, Nadine Gordimer, Elsa Joubert, Antjie Krog, Sindiwe Magona, Kopano Matlwa, Es’kia Mphahlele, Sisonke Msimang, Zukiswa Wanner and Zoë Wicomb. Later texts by black authors offer wry and subversive insights into the madam/maid nexus, capturing paradoxes relating to shifting power relationships. Like Family is an updated version of the award-winning Soos familie published in 2015 and the highly-acclaimed 2016 Dutch translation, Bijna familie.

In Seven Khoi lives Karel Schoeman writes about seven Khoi men and women whose lives became inextricably linked to the VOC’s settlement at the Cape in the seventeenth century. Chiefs and servants, enemies and interpreters; none of them escaped unscathed as their people were marginalised and their stories reduced to mere footnotes in the annals of history. These biographies were first seen in Kinders van die Kompanjie: Kaapse lewens uit die sewentiende eeu and have now been reworked for the benefit of a non-South African readership. Schoeman paints a vivid picture of life at the southernmost point of Africa at a time when the Khoikhoi believed they could find a way of living with these foreigners and their unceasing appetite for cattle – or free themselves forever of this unasked-for presence.

Leon and his twin Norman were born in August 1929, the youngest of four children born to Mary and Mark Levy, immigrants from Lithuania. His father died when Leon was six; to heroic degree, his mother carried the family – financially, practically and emotionally – in her widowhood. Leon was an intensely bookish boy but left school aged sixteen to help makes ends meet through a series of jobs. Deeply affected by the events of the Second World War and the Holocaust, Leon was radicalised in the Hashomer Hatza’ir, a left-wing Zionist youth movement. He was seventeen when he joined the Communist Party and became a committed young activist.

In 1953, at the age of twenty-four, Leon became a full-time trade unionist. ‘It was a defining moment in my life story,’ he writes. ‘It gave practical form to my political beliefs; it also determined the shape and scope of my life. It transpired that I would spend the next six decades and more working in trade unions, industrial relations and mediation.’

A comrade in the trade union movement nicknamed Leon, TsabaTsaba – which means “here, there and everywhere”. Anyone who reads Leon’s account of his years as a full-time unionist will agree that the soubriquet was well earned. (Alongside trade union work, Leon was also committed to the remarkable Discussion Club, which he co-founded and ran throughout the 1950s; he was also secretary of the South African Peace Council from 1951 to 1961.) In the mid-1950s, he was part of a small group of progressive trade unionists who pushed for the formation of the first non-racial trade union federation in South Africa. These aspirations were realised in March 1955 with the launch of the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU). Later that year Leon was elected president and remained in that position for nine years. SACTU linked day-to-day concerns of workers with support for national liberation and the abolition of apartheid and was one of the five organisations which formed the Congress Alliance. As SACTU leader, Leon served on the committee that directed the activities of the Alliance; he was present at Kliptown when the Freedom Charter was adopted – and as SACTU president was one of the five original signatories of the Freedom Charter.

Political activism of this order came at a high price. Leon Levy was served with banning orders and arrested several times; he was Accused No 4 of the 156 people arrested and charged with treason, and from November 1958 was one of the final 30 (and with Helen Joseph one of only two whites) who faced charges until the trial was finally dismissed in March 1961. He was detained for five months during the 1960 State of Emergency. In May 1963 he was the first person to be detained under the notorious General Laws Amendment Act, known as the 90-day Act. Unable to continue his work he chose to go into exile in the United Kingdom. There, he studied politics, economics and industrial relations at Oxford – and then applied what he had learned in a series of positions in industrial relations. After 1994, he was determined to make the skills and knowledge that he had acquired available to a democratic South Africa – and he and his wife Lorna returned to the country of their birth in 1997. In a remarkable final phase of his career, Leon took office shortly after his 70th birthday as a full-time commissioner for the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration – and spent the next 19 years in this capacity.

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.

Khotso Sethuntsa, the near-legendary medicine man, was believed to be a worker of powerful and dangerous magic. Khotso was renowned and feared throughout South Africa and beyond, even after his death in 1972. He created a fabulous eccentric kingdom around himself. He has been surrounded by mystery: the origins of his fortune and the extent of his powers shrouded in secrecy. This title takes us into the world of one of southern Africa's best-known herbalists.

Khotso was famed, especially, as a seller of ibangalala, a herbal remedy for sexual potency, and ukuthwala, a terrifying procedure for acquiring long-term wealth. Also, he claimed to be in spiritual contact with Paul Kruger, hinting that his fortune derived from the long-lost Kruger millions. Meanwhile, leading Afrikaner Nationalists politicians, including H.F.Verwoed and J.G.Strijdom, sought Khotso out - for his medicines for political power, it has been said. Some believed that Khotso had entered into an occult pact with the mamlambo, the seductive mermaid woman who grants wealth at a terrible price. It is rumoured that the tragic twists and turns in his life sprung from this. Yet, as one of his many wives said, he was, too, ""a lively, joking medicine man who loved money, sex and laughter.""

This title unravels many of the mysteries surrounding Khotso Sethuntsa. It explores his unique empire and tracks his extraordinary career.

Paul Erasmus’s searing account of his time as a security policeman during apartheid is nothing short of explosive.

In this book, remarkable for its candour as for its effort at Erasmus’s attempt at coming to a reckoning with the atrocities he committed or was party to, we read of the National Party’s determination to destroy Winnie Mandela, to terrorise anti-apartheid activists, and to smear and compromise people who did not accept the ‘Volk en Vaderland’ way. Erasmus lays bare the corruption and power mongering in the South African Police and the fascist associations that some cops were linked to. He names names, but ultimately asks himself how he could have done what he did.

His testimony before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was extensive and allowed a view into the world of Stratcom. This book takes that testimony a step further.

Panicked thoughts. Vivid nightmares. Racing heart. Unrelenting dread. Witnessing the drowning death of her four-year-old brother Owen was the beginning of a lifetime of nightmares. Growing up during the oppressive system, apartheid, in South Africa, increased her anxiety as she struggled with her self-worth. And it was in writing her debut book, A Darker Shade of Pale: A Memoir of Apartheid South Africa, that she unravelled.

In Behind My Smile: The True Story of an Author, a Broken Spirit and a Healer, Beryl dissects her struggles with grief. After a lifelong battle with self-acceptance Beryl found the keys to overcoming the stigma of mental breakdown.

The book offers a candid and absorbing account of Beryl's healing journey. She shares details of the intensive work of clinical psychologist and energy medicine practitioner, Dr Geoff Lyons. This healing encouraged Beryl to explore her belief in the power of her heritage, the gifts available from contact with her ancestors and traditional healing methods. Having found a true healer, Beryl was able to see the richness of a life free of all manner of oppression -- political, psychological, material. Based on her healing she strongly believes that talk therapy and traditional healing must merge.

This story is essential reading for anyone who knows what it means to hover on the edge, and find a way to dive back into life.

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.

Born in 1985 in Daveyton, Junior Khanye’s story cycles through themes of comedy, tragedy and triumph. His love for Kung Fu movies characterises his moxie for life - Ghetto Ninja. Kung Fu and dancing soon translated to undeniable skill on the soccer field.

Junior was scouted to Kaizer Chiefs aged just seventeen, where he soon became the darling of the nation with his goal scoring prowess. He shares how often he flirted with dangerous situations. Junior’s reputation as a troubled youth soon saw him kicked out of Kaizer Chiefs. From there he went through a tumultuous period cycling through phases of poverty and prosperity.

As Junior was at the brink of cementing his comeback and affirming his maturity, he suffered a great tragedy when a gang was sent to kill his family. His father was murdered that night. Junior was in the house but managed to escape the attack.

The soccer commentator and actor is living proof that one can come back from a state of darkness to achieve greatness.

Born into privilege, Joyce Piliso was quick to question her environment. At Crown Mines, Johannesburg, where her father was the Nduna, she lived in the gated compound set aside for the mining elite. Yet she soon discovered that the lives of the men in the barracks on the others side of the fence were harsh. Driven by compassion and the urge to make the world a better place, Joyce set out to be educated, first at Fort Hare, where she studied under ZK Matthews, and then in the UK, where she qualified as a social worker.

Back home, she teaches in Soweto when the 1976 revolt rocks South Africa. From here on, her journey becomes increasingly political.

Piliso­Seroke was a champion for human rights and a passionate feminist ahead of her time. Yet her life is also filled with jazz, travel, her beloved ‘stokkie’ and an unshakeable faith.

'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.

Sol Plaatje is one of South Africa's most important political and literary figures. A pioneer in the history of the black press, he was one of the founders of the African National Congress, a leading spokesman for black opinion throughout his life, and the author of three well-known books: Mafikeng Diary, Native Life in South Africa, and his historical novel, Mhudi. These books are not Plaatje's only claim to fame.

In the course of a prolific career he wrote letters to the press, newspaper articles and editorials, pamphlets, political speeches, evidence to government commissions of enquiry, unpublished autobiographical writings, and many personal letters. Together they provide both an engaging personal record and a very readable - and revealing - commentary on South African social and political affairs during the era of segregation, from 1899 through to Plaatje's tragically early death in 1932. What he wrote has a unique historical importance, all the more meaningful from the perspective of a democratic South Africa.

Brian Willan has assembled and edited this fascinating collection from a variety of disparate and often obscure sources, making a comprehensive selection of Plaatje's writings available to a wider audience.

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.

Ayanda is a South African actress, public figure and artivist best known for playing the title role in the SABC1 sitcom Nomzamo, since 2007. It is her however her current role as Phumemele on Isibaya that has cemented her presence in the acting industry. A role which saw her twice nominated for the Royalty Soapie Awards.

In this personal memoir, Ayanda tracks her journey back to self in a bid to return to her true self and to redefine her worth. Ayanda shares intimate details of her most profound experiences as a young girl in the township in a toxic relationship with a high flying gangster. As young woman falling pregnant out of wedlock and the ostracism she encountered. As a young black woman in a white male dominated corporate environment. As an artist who didn’t quite fit into mainstream popularity and her battle to maintain her authenticity in an industry that recognizes fake over real. As a loyal friend betrayed by someone she loved and trusted. As a mother overwhelmed by the expectations of being a supermom. As a young wife fighting not to lose herself in marriage. As well as finding God by going against the stereotypes that define God for us.

In this memoir Ayanda zooms into and challenges the social expectations, cultural conditioning and people perceptions that sets the narrative that dictates the “self worth” for girls and women. By unlearning and reflecting on the untrue narratives girls and women are told and taught about themselves and learning a different truth, girls and women can begin the ‘Unbecoming To Become’ journey of restoring their identity, reclaiming their power and redefining their self worth.

’n Epiese reis in ’n klein seiljag van Frankryk tot aan die Namakwalandse kus gedurende die Tweede Wêreldoorlog, sabotasiepogings en planne om Eerste Minister Jan Smuts in ’n sluipmoord om die lewe te bring . . . In die vroeë 1940’s is die Suid-Afrikaanse publiek aangegryp deur die uitdagende optrede van die Olimpiese bokser en swaargewigkampioen Robey Leibbrandt. Hy was dodelik gekant teen Suid-Afrika se deelname aan die oorlog.

Sy ekstremisme, opvlieënd-heid en onverdraagsaamheid was tipies van ’n politieke fanatikus. Leibbrandt het ’n aanhanger van Nasionaal-Sosialisme geword toe hy in 1936 vir Suid-Afrika in Berlyn aan die Olimpiese Spele gaan deelneem het. Hy was besig met opleiding in Europa toe die oorlog uitbreek. Die Duitse militêre intelligensiediens het hom kort daarna gewerf om sabotasieopleiding te ontvang. Die Duitsers het Leibbrandt teruggestuur na Suid-Afrika as deel van Operasie Weissdorn. Sy missie? Om die militante deel van die Afrikaner-opposisie te werf en met hulle hulp skeeps- en haweinstallasies, asook nywerhede, te vernietig, en om oproer in die Uniemagte te stook.

Dit was nie lank nie of die polisie was op Leibbrandt se spoor en hy is ná een van die grootste polisiesoektogte in hegtenis geneem. Sy hoogverraadsaak in 1943 en 1944 het hoofopskrifte gehaal. Dié biografie werp nuwe lig op hierdie enigmatiese historiese figuur en wat sy fanatisme aangevuur het.

The classic story of life in Apartheid South Africa.

Mark Mathabane was weaned on devastating poverty and schooled in the cruel streets of South Africa's most desperate ghetto, where bloody gang wars and midnight police raids were his rites of passage. Like every other child born in the hopelessness of apartheid, he learned to measure his life in days, not years. Yet Mark Mathabane, armed only with the courage of his family and a hard-won education, raised himself up from the squalor and humiliation to win a scholarship to an American university.

This extraordinary memoir of life under apartheid is a triumph of the human spirit over hatred and unspeakable degradation. For Mark Mathabane did what no physically and psychologically battered "Kaffir" from the rat-infested alleys of Alexandra was supposed to do -- he escaped to tell about it.

Voortrekkerstamouers 1835–1845 is die eerste keer in 2000 gepubliseer. Dié tweede, hersiende uitgawe is aangevul met 214 nuwe stamouers. Dit bring die aantal mense wat die Groot Trek meegemaak het, op 23 000 te staan, in plaas van die oorspronklik geskatte 20 000.

Wat hierdie databasis van Voortrekkers nog meer besonders maak, is die versameling uiters skaars foto’s en portrette wat aangebied word.

In hierdie fotokabinet kan ongeveer 150 afbeeldings van Voortrekkers gesien word.

Gordon Jephtas (1943–92) was born into an impoverished, coloured, single-parent family in South Africa. He began piano lessons after being intrigued by the harmonium player at the local church. In his teens he worked as an accompanist with the amateur coloured opera group “Eoan” in Cape Town, then moved to Europe to further his studies. His first big break came in 1972 when the Zurich Opera House appointed him to assist the conductor Nello Santi. Jephtas thereafter established an international reputation as a vocal coach of Italian opera, and Switzerland provided him with a liberal environment where he was free to express his sexuality. Both there and later in the USA, Jephtas worked with the biggest names in the opera world, from Renata Tebaldi to Plácido Domingo, Montserrat Caballé and Luciano Pavarotti. He always longed to be accepted back in South Africa, but his attempts to return culminated each time in disaster because talent and experience meant little in a land where “whiteness” trumped everything. An official offer to be made an “honorary white” merely intensified his inner turmoil. Back in the USA, Jephtas’s professional success was tempered by private misfortune. He died in New York in 1992.

This book examines the life and career of Gordon Jephtas through the letters that he wrote home to May Abrahamse, a coloured singer with whom he had worked since his teens. They reveal in unique detail the life and achievements of a remarkable musician, but also the psychological damage wrought upon him by apartheid. Jephtas provides a fascinating case study of a gifted South African abroad, struggling with issues of race and sexuality at the height of the AIDS epidemic.

Hoe weet ’n klein seuntjie van skaars drie jaar oud dat hy in die verkeerde liggaam gebore is?

Wat ervaar daardie seuntjie in die eerste twee dekades van sy lewe dat hy so oortuig raak van wie en wat hy moet wees, dat hy die lang pad van geslagshertoewysing aanpak sodat hy sy droombestaan kan voer in die liggaam waarvoor hy gebore is?

Min het Pierre van der Merwe daardie tyd geweet wat Elise van der Merwe alles in haar nuwe bestaan sal ontdek en ervaar.

’n Hartstogtelik eerlike en roerende verhaal wat ook baie sal beteken vir mense wat met hierdie dilemma gebore is.

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.

On 2 February 1959, a musical about the life and times of heavyweight boxing star Ezekiel Dhlamini (known as 'King Kong') opened in Johannesburg to a packed audience that included Nelson Mandela. King Kong was not just South Africa's first ever musical, but one that grew out of a collaboration between black people and white, and showcased an all-black cast.

It was an instant hit, bursting through the barriers of apartheid and eventually playing to 200,000 South Africans of every colour before transferring to London's West End. Pat Williams, the show's lyricist, was at the time an apolitical young woman trying to free herself from the controls and prejudices of the genteel white society in which she lived. Here she recounts her experience of growing up in a divided South Africa, her involvement in the musical, and its lasting impact both on herself and on the show's cast, many of whom went on to find international fame, like South African jazz legends Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela. Her memoir takes the story up to the present day.

It is both a vivid evocation of a troubled time and place as well as a celebration of a joyous production, in which a group of young people came together in South Africa's dark times - to create a show which still lives on today.