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.

Richard Rive was a writer, scholar, literary critic and teacher in Cape Town. This biography creates the composite qualities of a man who was committed to the struggle against racial oppression and beneath whose public persona lurked a constant and troubled awareness of race and guardedness about his homosexuality.

Anne Biccard has worked as an emergency doctor in Johannesburg for more than 30 years. It is a job that is both terrifying and thrilling, where death can be outwitted by skill and quick thinking, and the pressure eased by dark humour. The coronavirus, however, has added another dimension of fear.

In this heartwarming and at times hilarious memoir she recounts some of the cases that have burst in through her doors, such as the woman who mistook her Dettol for beer and the man who tried to run down his cardiologist. There is sadness, too, as she remembers the patients who didn't make it.

Above all, she writes of the camaraderie and dogged determination of health workers holding fast in the face of the Covid-19 nightmare as they battle, every day, to save a stranger's life.

Breaking a Rainbow, Building a Nation covers the university protests that took place in 2015–2016, better known as the #FeesMustFall protests. Rekgotsofetse (Kgotsi) gives us his first-hand account of what happened prior to the protests and what led to the events of October 2015 at the various university campuses and nationally.

This is a four-part retelling of what happened on the ground amongst the students, first at #RhodesMustFall, then moving to the university responses and management and what ultimately led to #FeesMustFall nationwide. Chikane then looks at student politics now and how they are different from 1976, specifically the fact that the protests were being led by so-called coconuts, who are part of the black elite.

The book poses the provocative question, can coconuts be trusted with the revolution?

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.

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.

Like so many of her generation, Lwando Xaso came of age alongside the beginnings and growth of South Africa’s constitutional democracy. Her journey into adulthood was a radically different one from that of earlier generations, marked by hope that changing perceptions would usher in a new and free society.

Made in South Africa – A Black Woman’s Stories of Rage, Resistance and Progress is a vibrant collection of essays in which Lwando examines with incisive clarity some of the events that have shaped her experience of South Africa – a country with huge potential but weighed down by persistent racism and inequality, cultural appropriation, sexism and corruption, all legacies of a complicated history.

As a young lawyer intent on climbing the corporate ladder, Lwando’s life’s direction was changed by a personal experience of the oppressive capacity of a supposedly democratic government when it unjustly fired a close family friend and mentor from a senior government position. She found herself on his legal team and the turmoil the case created within her led her to further her studies in constitutional law, and to pick up her pen and share with a wider audience her views of what was happening in her beloved country.

Her outlook was further shaped by her experience of clerking at the Constitutional Court for Justice Edwin Cameron, which deepened her respect for the South African Constitution, and what it really means for a resilient people to strive continually to live up to its moral and legal standards.

Lwando’s writing reflects her unflinching resolve to live according to the precepts of our groundbreaking Constitution and offers a challenge to all South Africans to believe in and achieve ‘the improbable’.

Zanzibar’s brief and brutal revolution is almost forgotten. During the Cold War, the small archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Tanganyika, became significant in the early ‘60s because of its vulnerability and position at the edge of Africa’s rotting Colonial corpse. As had the early Arab slavers, religious pioneers and Imperial European adventurers, so too the purveyors of Communism and Socialism used Zanzibar as a base for their ambitions in Africa.

From here they began making swift incisions into the carcass and white Southern African tribes began to show concern while the West shrugged.

This book tells the story of a boy’s journey through the turbulent waters of his own young life during these urgent moments in Equatorial East Africa and Southern Africa. It is a tale of love and loss.

Ettienne Leroux en Ingrid Winterbach het begin briewe uitruil in 1966 wat gelei het tot die publikasie van een van Leroux se persoonlikste en geheimsinnigste werke, 18-44. Amper vyftig jaar later word Leroux se briewe deur Philip Snyman ontdek, ‘n afgedankte joernalis wat probeer om die pad na herstel te vind na die dood van sy meisie en die ineenstorting van sy loopbaan.

Hoe dieper Philip egter in die briewekorrespondensie delf, hoe meer raaisels en geheime boodskappe ontdek hy. Dit lei hom na ‘n onverwagse, tragiese verkenning, nie net van Leroux nie, maar ook homself.

Hy raak al hoe meer obsessief. Hy praat met homself en skryf rye en rye getalle neer waarin hy insiggewende ooreenkomste sien. Teen hierdie tyd kan niks meer as die waarheid aanvaar word nie, en moet die leser saam met Philip die raaisel probeer oplos.

I in me is an autobiography of a popular South African musician, Steve Kekana, who became blind at the age of five. The book is written through a first person narrative to capture the emotions and experiences that Steve has gone through in his life as a blind person. He focuses on many stages of his life: attending school at Siloe school for the blind, which was an escape from humiliations in his community where blind people were stigmatised on a daily basis.

VRYGEKOOP is 'n spannigsvolle verhaal wat jou gaan meesleur op 'n emosionele jaagtog gevul met hartseer, hoop, vrees en liefde.

Deur alles sal jy verstom staan oor God se grootheid.

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.

This book traces the history of the Soul Brothers, a popular South African mbaqanga group that was formed in 1975. In this book the reader is invited to a 43 year journey of the Soul Brothers in music covering their successes and tribulation and their contribution to revolutionizing Mbaqanga music.

The book provides details about how the group was formed: who the original members were and how they met. It further highlights some painful but encouraging moments of the tragic deaths of original members and how the group managed to forge courage and carry on recording albums and performing live on local and international stages. In the book the reader learns more about when the group began recording albums and the events that led to the composition of certain songs.

Furthermore, using colorful photos of their accolades, gold and platinum discs, newspaper and magazine articles, and the views of other mbaqanga musicians, the book shows why the Soul brothers are proclaimed the Kings of Mbaqanga. It also has a chapter that analyses their music focusing specifically on the social meanings of their music.

Dit is my storie oor hoe God my gehelp het deur persoonlike pyn, swaarkry, woede, GBV, emosionele mishandeling en selfmoordgedagtes op 'n vroeë ouderdom van my lewe totdat ek 'n volwasse vrou geword het.

In hierdie boek sal jy meer leer oor hoe ek myself moes optel toe ek af en uit was, daar was 'n paar tye van trane, woede, bitterheid en selfs gelag, dis waar God my gelei het oor hoe om beproewings en beproewings te oorwin.

God het vir ons al die stukke gegee wat nodig is om uitsonderlike welstand en gesondheid te bereik, maar Hy het dit aan ons oorgelaat om hierdie stukke bymekaar te sit.

Jy leer meer uit mislukking as uit sukses. Moenie dat dit jou keer nie. Mislukking bou karakter.

Shauwn 'Mamkhize' Mkhize is a larger than life personality who, like her father and brother before her, is loved and misunderstood in equal measure. Her combination of political and business acumen runs in her family, and so is her ability to garner the sometimes-grudging admiration of those who have followed her rise to fame and fortune in the democratic dispensation. In her memoir, Mamkhize: My World, My Rules, this remarkable businesswoman shares the details of her cloistered but privileged childhood, which was torn asunder by the assassination of her father and the subsequent quest by her brother to avenge his death. She tells the story of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission from her unique vantage point, as a family member of a victim.

As a young accounting graduate freshly returned from an overseas experience, Shauwn lands what initially seems to be a dream job with the multinational corporation that had sponsored her training abroad. It soon dissipates into disappointment - work that receives insufficient pay and she bravely ventures into business. In this book, she dispels the urban legends about her wealth, family, marriage and subsequent divorce. She reflects on the much-publicized story of her reinvention as Mamkhize, the soccer boss, and shares the lessons that she has learned from the experiences that life has given her. A woman with incredible agency, Mamkhize allows the reader a glimpse into her family life and her formative years. She illuminates how they have shaped the woman that she is today.

Not one to reveal every single trick of her trades (after all, she is the business), Shauwn Mkhize manages to regale without spoiling her aura of mystique. While touching the reader with her love for her parents, siblings and children, this memoir displays the dexterity with which she navigates modern life while striving to maintain a sense of tradition that keeps her grounded.

Broken Porcelain is not just a book of essays describing one Black woman’s experience of mental illness, but rather a memoir-in-essays that shatters the walls of our hearts and guides us towards empathy – all while providing social commentary that demystifies stigmas of mental illness.

In her singular lyrical prose, Relebone Rirhandzu eAfrika covers topics such as social media’s role in how we view depression, generational trauma, what self-care really is, taking anti-depressant medication, and finding love when you are mentally ill.

The author writes with poignant honesty about the darkness of her mental illness and breaks down what mental illness is (and is not).

A Man, A Fire, A Corpse tells the story of Captain Amos Maneta: a man who was most often referred to as ‘The Top Cop of Soweto’; as written by his son Rofhiwa Maneta.

The book is a collection of the physical and metaphysical bruises collected by the author’s father in his 30-plus years of working in the police service.

Through his father’s story, Rofhiwa Maneta examines the relationship between police and the public. Maneta’s mix of journalism, remembered history, anecdote and autobiography further discusses the relationship between South Africa and violence; while taking a look at what it takes to be an honest policeman in a department whose groundwater is corruption and maladministration.

Vir 45 jaar het Freek Robinson die grootste nuusgebeure in die ou én nuwe Suid-Afrika eerstehands beleef. As TV-joernalis en nuusanker was hy ’n gereelde besoeker in miljoene Suid-Afrikaners se huise.

In sy memoires deel Freek dit wat hy agter die skerms beleef het.

Dié boek verweef die lewe en loopbaan van een van ons land se mees gerespekteerde en geliefde joernaliste en gee ’n besonderse blik op die ingrypende nuusomwentelinge in ons onlangse geskiedenis.

Joanne Hichens lost first her mother, then, in quick succession, her husband, her father and her mother-in-law - two deaths anticipated, two coming as the worst kind of shock. In this memoir of grief and recovery, she writes with honesty and humour of death, our 'constant companion', and the stumbling journey through the country of grief.

By turns searing and sparkling, her account gives compelling insight into the losses that stalk us all, while also celebrating the mainstays of life - friendship, family, and the memories of those we love and lose.

In the first three months of 1976, during his imprisonment on Robben Island, Nelson Mandela wrote the bulk of his autobiography "Long Walk to Freedom". This was an illegal act, and the manuscript had to be smuggled out by fellow prisoner Mac Maharaj on his release that year. Maharaj used the opportunity to ask Mandela and other political prisoners to write essays about South Africa's political future. These were smuggled out with Mandela's autobiography, and are published, 25 years later, in this book.
These essays provide a "snapshot" of the thinking of Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and other prominent Robben Island prisoners before the 1976 Soweto uprising changed the face of politics in South Africa. As such they provide an insight into our history. Each essay is preceded by a biographical introduction and a sketch of the author specially commissioned for this volume.

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.

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.

This book lifts the veil on what it’s like to cross a chasm in South Africa - from newspaper editor opposing apartheid repression to adviser in the Presidency and government in democracy.

It is the personal story of Tony Heard, former Editor of the Cape Times, moving from journalist to spin-doctor, consultant, speechwriter and other official business.

His new career covers a decade in the Presidency as a special adviser (2000-2010), and a dozen years in 3 government ministries/departments. In all, he serves governance for 22 years (June 1994 to June 2016), most of the first quarter century of his country’s freedom.

It begins with the endearing story of a young girl's childhood and coming of age as a minister's daughter in turbulent South Africa; and, it draws a compelling picture of the good and evil that surrounded her and their impact on her heart and life.

The contrast between the stunning natural beauty of South Africa and the pervasive violence and fear that she encounters play out on the pages of this story, as does her relationship with God as she navigates ordeals of deep loss and severe trials. The division of South Africa and the effect on the lives of her family are also lightly addressed. The second half of the book depicts their struggles and setbacks, as she and her family attempt to carve out a new life in the United States. However, she also shares the laughter enjoyed with friends and the comfort that only a cup of hot tea can bring.

Reminiscent of the writing style of Frank McCourt, Jenny's captivating story depicts her journey with candor and openness. We can relate and are encouraged because most of us have encountered trials and struggles on our journey. Jenny is one of us.