A fresh new look at South Africa from well-known author Dawid van Lill.

See South Africa is the latest offering from an author whose name has become synonymous with reliable and fast facts. Where regular trivia and fact guides consist of list upon list of information, Van Lill takes a different route here and represents facts about the country at a glance with an innovative visual approach.

On every one of the 90 double-page, full-colour spreads, Van Lill curates interesting and important information that every South African needs to know: from the symbolic meaning of the country’s shield, to the location and height of every lighthouse on the coast of our country. This book will be welcomed in every home – a boon to readers young and old.

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.'

In Mr Entertainment, we hear the voices of the people who knew Taliep Petersen best: his family, friends and collaborators. Their stories bring to life the spaces he inhabited, vividly recounting scenes from his childhood, his rise to fame from the Cape Coon Carnival stage to the West End, his artistic collaborations, most notably with David Kramer, his family life, and his tragic death and its aftermath.

In this pioneering biography of one of Cape Town’s most beloved entertainers, we encounter Petersen as a complex and many-sided personality whose influence continues to reverberate in national life. Mr Entertainment evokes not just Taliep’s life, but also the music and entertainment worlds of the 1950s to 2000s and their diverse and irrepressible cultural traditions. Along the way, it brings us to the front row of South Africa’s difficult history.

Drawing on the musician’s personal archive and on more than fifty interviews conducted over a decade, Paula Fourie has pieced together a fascinating portrait of Taliep Petersen, acutely observed and poignantly captured.

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.

Sihle Khumalo loves a challenge. He likes to think on his feet and prefers to depart from what can only be called a wish list.

The plans for his trip to West Africa were lean on practical detail but grand in concept: 'to visit Five World Heritage Sites listed by UNESCO for their historical and cultural significance'. He had never set foot in Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin or Togo, but not to worry, he would inform himself about Francophone Africa as he went along, and conclude in an English speaking country.

Had he informed himself more thoroughly beforehand, pondered the implications of having next-to-no French in a part of the world where it is the lingua franca, or what public transport may be like in a country with no infrastructure to speak of, he might have set off less bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. But Sihle is not one to be deterred by setbacks and dead-ends.

His flexibility, irrepressible optimism and robust sense of humour, coupled with an unexpected sensitivity towards his host countries, see him reach all but one - no, two of his goals.

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.

Beneath the Nelson Mandela Boulevard flyover on Cape Town's foreshore lives a community of stowaways, young Tanzanian men from the slums of Dar es Salaam.

When journalist Sean Christie meets Adam Bashili, he comes to know the extraordinary world of Beachboys, a multi-port, fourth-generation subculture that lives to stow away and stows away to survive. But Sean starts to accompany the beachboys on trips around their everyday Cape Town, he becomes more than a casual observer, serving as sometime moneylender, driver, confidant and scribe, and eventually joining Adam on an unprecedented tour of Dar es Salaam's underworld and a reckless run down Africa's east coast.

Under Nelson Mandela Boulevard remaps both city and continent, introducing us to the places and people we so frequently overlook.

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.

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.

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.

In the shattered fantasy of rainbow-nation South Africa, there are many uncomfortable truths. Among these are family secrets - the legacies of traumas in the homes and bones of ordinary South African families.

In this debut collection, feminist and Khoi San activist Kelly-Eve Koopman grapples with the complex beauty and brutality of the everyday as she struggles with her family legacy. She tries unsuccessfully to forget her father - a not-so-prominent journalist and anti-apartheid activist, desperately mentally ill and expertly emotionally abusive - who has recently disappeared, leaving behind a wake of difficult memories. Mesmerisingly, Koopman wades through the flotsam and jetsam of generations, among shipwrecks and sunken treasures, in an attempt at familial and collective healing.

Sometimes tragic, sometimes hilarious, she faces up to herself as a brown, newly privileged "elder millennial", caught between middle-class aspirations and social justice ideals. An artist, a daughter, a queer woman in love, she is in pursuit of healing, while trying to lose those last 5 kilograms, to the great disappointment of her feminist self.

Renowned cartoonist Dov Fedler got the opportunity in the 1980s to have a dream come true: Directing a movie. He had no idea how to do it, but didn’t let that stop him. This memoir is a humorous story of the pitfalls that opened up as he worked on a movie where the cast wasn’t allowed to speak English to him while he spoke no isiZulu, the producer was just shy of being a crook, and where Dov had no idea the apartheid government was funding it.

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.

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.

Wat beteken dit as ’n jong Afrikanerman jou beskryf as “nogals orraait”? Hoe trek jy die gehoor se aandag as die basaarpoeding hulle gemesmeraais het? En waar in die wêreld is die berugte Pomona Spur? In dié piepie-jou-nat-van-die-lag memoire verklap Schalk – en sy soortvan-bestuurder, Erns Grundling – die bisarre en hartroerende dinge wat hy oorgekom het op sy reise regoor die land na oral waar ’n mikrofoon en ’n gehoor hom inwag.

Jan Smuts, een van die bekendste Suid-Afrikaners van die twintigste eeu, bly 'n omstrede figuur. Was hy een van die uitstaande staatsmanne van sy tyd of dalk 'n verraaier van Afrikanerbelange en moontlik 'n rassis? In hierdie boek word generaal J.C. Smuts herwaardeer. Smuts se rol as intellektueel (onder meer vader van holisme), militere strateeg (hy het 'n leidende rol tydens drie oorloe gespeel), politikus (vir 'n halwe eeu in die "era van die generaals" was hy prominent) en staatsman (hy was 'n dryfkrag agter die vorming van die Unie van Suid-Afrika, die Britse Statebond, die Volkebond en die Verenigde Nasies) word beoordeel. Altesaam 20 outeurs het help skryf. Soos Paul Kruger aan die einde van die 19de eeu en Nelson Mandela aan die einde van die 20ste eeu, het Jan Smuts in die eerste helfte van die 20ste eeu bo sy tydgenote uitgetroon as 'n leier van buitengewone formaat. Sy staatsmanskap is internasionaal gehuldig. Tog het die NP- en ANC-regerings sy bydraes vir dekades lank onderspeel, omdat dit nie hul Afrikaner- en swart nasionalistiese weergawes van die Suid-Afrikaanse geskiedenis onderskraag het nie. Dit was hoofsaaklik Engelssprekende skrywers, Suid-Afrikaners en buitelanders, wat Smuts se gedagtenis in stand gehou het. 'n Herwaardering van Smuts vanuit 'n Afrikaanse gesigspunt sal dus 'n leemte in die literatuur oor die geskiedenis van Suid-Afrika in die eerste helfte van die 20ste eeu vul. Vandag het ons 'n beter perspektief op sy bydraes binne die historiese konteks van sy tyd. Nuwe getuienis wat voortdurend aan die lig kom, maak dit ook moontlik om 'n meer ingeligte opinie te formuleer oor vrae rondom Smuts.

Bronwyn Davids’ great-grandpa Joe built their family home in Lansdowne, Cape Town, during the 1920s. She recreates their lives in the pages of this book and takes us on a journey with her family against the backdrop of apartheid South Africa. 

A charming family story, but also of gut-wrenching loss that is physical, mental, and spiritual.

Tim Noakes is one of the world’s leading authorities on the science behind sport and a successful sportsman in his own right. Through a lifetime of research, he has developed key scientific concepts in sport that have not only redefined the way elite athletes and teams approach their professions, but challenged conventional global thinking in these areas.

In this new and updated edition of Challenging Beliefs, Noakes shares his views on everything from the myths perpetuated by the sports-drink industry to the prevalence of banned substances, the need to make rugby a safer sport and the benefits of a high-protein, low-carb diet. The teams and athletes with whom Noakes has worked make fascinating backdrops to these topics, highlighting the importance of science in sport in human terms.

In providing an intimate look at the golden threads running through Noakes’s life and career, this remarkable book reveals the landmark theories and principles generated by one of the greatest minds in the history of sports science.

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.

This is the sensational insider story of Oscar Pistorius, by the acclaimed author of Playing The Enemy (which inspired the movie Invictus.)

The murder trial of Oscar Pistorius will rivet the world's attention in a way no other case has since another famous sportsman, O. J. Simpson, was tried for the murder of his ex wife in 1994. John Carlin brings his own extensive knowledge of South Africa and access to Pistorius himself, as well as to his friends and family, after the death of Reeva Steenkamp to tell the story of the rise and fall of a classically tragic hero.

It is the most remarkable sports story ever told - about a man whose legs were amputated at the age of eleven months and ended up running in the Olympic Games - and it is a story too about crime and punishment, love and death that follows Pistorius' trail from South Africa to London, to the United States, to Iceland, to Italy and has at its heart a richly varied and compelling set of characters, among them the beautiful victim, two brilliant rival lawyers and the fascinatingly complex figure of Oscar Pistorius himself.

When Errol Tobias was selected for the Springbok rugby team there was an immediate uproar. He became our first black Springbok in 1980 – in the middle of South Africa’s isolation from international sport and growing protest action against the government. In Errol Tobias: Pure Gold he talks openly about his sporting career: from childhood to the great moments in the green and gold. Here are the joys, the losses, and the controversy.

The truth behind legendary rugby matches is revealed, such as the South American tour where Tobias broke a world record, and the disastrous New Zealand tour that was overshadowed by protests against the Springboks. He writes about his close friendship with fellow Springbok legend Rob Louw, and the unwavering support of Danie ‘Doc’ Craven. Tobias also gives his opinion on the quota system of today.

Many others have talked about Errol Tobias and his effect on South African rugby. Here is his side of the story.

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.

Dit het die land geruk, die wêreld geboei en sal in die geskiedenis bekendstaan as die opspraakwekkendste hofsaak tot nog toe in Suid-Afrika. Oscar Pistorius se moordverhoor is die storie van die dekade. Dis ’n liefdesverhaal wat ’n misdaadriller geword het, ’n sprokie wat in bloed geëindig het.

En dís hoe Marida Fitzpatrick die verhaal vertel. Sy weef die skrikwekkende gebeure van daardie noodlottige nag en die mees dramatiese hoofstukke van die verhoor op só ’n manier ineen dat dit soos ’n spanningsverhaal lees. Tussendeur dié boeiende vertelling is uittreksels uit onderhoude wat Fitzpatrick met van die betrokkenes se naastes gevoer het.

Saam met al die menslike vertellings verskyn daar ook ’n interessante ontrafeling van die tegniese aspekte van die verhoor: Wat het die ballistiek, die getuienis oor die gille en Oscar se twee verwere uiteindelik vir hom beteken?

Dit word alles geïllustreer met treffende foto’s wat op die toneel geneem is en grafiese voorstellings.

Die Staat vs. Oscar is ’n fassinerende storie wat nie net al die legkaartstukke van die Oscar-raaisel in plek laat val nie, maar deurentyd aangryp en meesleur.

Stoked is an inspiring true story about courage, determination and the power of dreams.

Chris Bertish was a skinny little kid from Cape Town when he started surfing with his brothers. Fiercely driven and constantly pushing his boundaries, Chris was not content with conquering ‘ordinary’ big waves. He wanted more: bigger waves, bigger swells, more adrenaline. What began as a personal quest to prove to himself that he was one of the best in the ‘big-wave brotherhood’ culminated a decade later with Chris being crowned South Africa’s first Mavericks BigWave Champion. Competitors in the 2010 event were faced with the biggest and heaviest waves ever recorded in the history of the sport and Chris, on his own budget, on the back of a 40-hour plane journey and on borrowed equipment, outsmarted and outperformed the world’s best-paid professional surfers.

How did Chris achieve this feat? ‘Nothing is impossible, unless you believe it to be’ is just one of the philosophies he lives by. Out of his passion for big-wave surfing has grown a profound wisdom and an appreciation of a few simple truths, which he shares in Stoked. With his infectious enthusiasm, Chris tells how he pulled off death-defying antics time and again, overcame overwhelming obstacles and fears, and parried every blow that fate dealt him, all without ever losing faith or focus on his dreams.