Nomasomali – Ubomi bam is the life story of an extraordinary South African woman.

Born in 1941 in Bizana in the former Transkei, Marjorie Nomasomali Goniwe Nkomo seems to have lived many lives – as wife, mother, daughter, sister, cousin, aunt, nurse, activist and social worker – Before apartheid, During apartheid and After apartheid. In just 138 pages, the author seamlessly presents her history with the touch of a master storyteller and the universal voice of grandmothers everywhere.

From the first line, we are engaged with her back in time, walking among her childhood friends following Nkosi Ndunge, the village traditional leader, as he strides through the streets proclaiming his authority. We are taken back to the homestead and the fields and the hearth, where meals are made and stories are brewed, along with the tea. Divided into three Parts – Before, During, After – the story moves from the innocence of the homestead and tales of growing up among a community of nurturing adults to Nomasomali’s rise to adulthood, marriage, family and the ravages of apartheid. As the history of that period is well documented, it is refreshing to experience it from the perspective of a life moving forward in spite of the events swirling around it.

Part 3, ‘After’, is a bittersweet reflection on what has become of our country since South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994. One is left in catharsis, wishing for a return to the innocence of a bygone era but knowing it is gone forever. A sad fact that makes stories like this one such treasures.

In November 2019, Deon Wiggett’s sensational weekly podcasts held South Africa in thrall as he hunted down the paedophile who raped him as a schoolboy. Now, in My Only Story, he completes his exposé of Willem Breytenbach, the once brilliant teacher and later media luminary who led a predatory life.

Deon’s mission to expose his abuser takes him from Breytenbach’s high-school years at an agricultural school in South Africa’s hinterland to the famous Grey College in Bloemfontein and the media titan Naspers. But his quest reveals so much more. As he traces systemic failures through schools great and small, he uncovers a culture of complicity that poses a clear and present danger to the country’s children. While investigating men who prey on boys and girls, Deon devises a model that anyone can use to identify paedophiles in their midst. In his own words: ‘It’s pleasant to pretend that men don’t rape children, but once you accept that they do, it becomes surprisingly easy to recognise their trickery. Once you match a universal pattern to a specific man’s profile, you can spot the deceit before it is too late.’

My Only Story is a riveting, thoughtful and often irreverent account of one man’s determination to overcome childhood trauma; to help others face their demons; and to extract some beauty from the boyhood he lost.

Born Perlé van Schalkwyk, into a strict Jehovah Witness family, after studying drama at Stellenbosch University, Perlé quickly realises that acting is not going to buy her that house on the hill. And so erotic dancing and stripping becomes her modus operandi and GiGi is born. 

Tales of drugs, murder and porn lace her fascinating life, along with stories of courage and cunning in the sexist underworld. GiGi is a true survivor. Ultimately, this bare all memoir will both titillate and inspire. 

Hermann Giliomee, pre-eminent South African historian, dissects the forces that shaped the Afrikaners into an unusual ‘maverick African’ nation.

He analyses long-term forces like the powerful legal position of Afrikaner women, the expanding frontier, and the struggles about race inside the church, along with more recent political history.

Her business burnt to the ground, her home flooded, family bankruptcy a harsh reality, and yet, these events paled into insignificance for what was to come. Mala was diagnosed with four complex and debilitating, incurable diseases. She became riddled with inflammation and excruciating symptoms. The medical prognosis – no hope and wheelchair bound for the rest of her life. Her relationships and life were falling apart.

But, Mala defied the limited beliefs of medical science and today is walking, dancing, driving and thriving again. How? She used her adverse situation to conduct intensive research resulting in a unique Take-Charge Wellness formula that works! This non-fiction, self-help book is a success story that is both gripping and empowering for those caught up in the stress of everyday life or battling a chronic illness.

This, is Mala’s story, scientifically researched and referenced.

Hierdie boek is Willie Steyn se eerstehandse weergawe van wat ongetwyfeld die grootste ontsnappingsveraal van die Anglo-Boereoorlog is. Hy was een van seshondred Boere wat per skip na die eiland van Ceylon gestuur is om daar in die Diyatalawa-kamp geïnterneer te word. Die skip was op 'n donker, maanlose nag in die hawe van Colombo vasgeanker toe Steyn en vier van sy mede-gevangenes een-een met 'n tou in die water afsak terwyl Britse soldate om die skip patrolleer.

Die bekoring van Willie Steyn se persoonlike weergawe lê in die onderbeklemtoning en die feitlike eenvoud daarvan. Hy probeer homself nie as 'n held voorstel nie en maak geen aanspraak op roem nie, maar die intensiteit en krag van die vertelling verhoog namate dit ontvou. Vanaf die oomblik dat hy op die slagveld gevange geneem word, het Willie Steyn een doel voor oë: Hy gáán ontsnap. Die leser word bewus van hierdie dwingende dryfkrag, en leer Willie ken as 'n ongebonde gees, wat selfs in gevangenskap nooit sy brandende begeerte en vasberadenheid om tot die stryd terug te keer, verloor nie.

Deneys Reitz - skrywer van Kommando en bekend vir sy eie dapperheid - het in 1903 Steyn as 'een van ons dapperste burgers' beskryf, en sy ontsnapping as 'n daad 'sonder weerga in die geskiedenis van ontsnapping' genoem.

The healing power of life writing, one shared story at a time

This Is How It Is a “refreshing, poignant and wide-ranging” (Helen Moffett) collection of real life experiences: 52 stories, prose and poetry, that tell of a man who is anxious about an HIV test; a child with an alarming nose for gossip and a girl who is saved by the enemy in a war zone. Some of the writers are grieving the loss of a child or struggling with addiction, abuse, bullying or betrayal. Most of these writers have never been published before. They wrote these stories primarily to bear witness to their lives and the troubled times in which we live. Putting traumatic experiences down on paper can help people work through shame, guilt and fear, releasing them from the traps they lay. Writing is sometimes able to turn a painful incident into something more manageable, even beautiful.

Sharing stories can also heal both the writer and the reader. When we first meet a stranger, we make assumptions about them. When we hear of their life in their own words, we find that many of our negative assumptions are wrong. Often we discover that we are more alike than we are different. Our magnificent world is in trouble, much of it because we are not paying attention to what is right in front of us. When the facts don’t stir us to reconsider, story can. This anthology invites us to become curious and reflective rather than fearful and defensive. It encourages us to climb down from the ladder of hierarchy and competition and to join the circle of relationship and humanity by becoming vulnerable enough to share and listen to our own and each other’s half-hidden stories.

But equally importantly, Bongani Kona, 2016 Caine Prize finalist, reminds us: “We forget that the most daring thing we can do is to allow ourselves to be seen. To stand before the world and to say this is who I am. This is how it is.”

About THE LIFE RIGHTING COLLECTIVE: The Life Righting Collective (LRC) runs courses for anyone who wants to learn to write about their experiences. The approach promotes self-discovery, self-recovery and more effective communication. It raises funds to make courses available to those in need of sponsorship and to provide platforms for these life stories to be published. Sharing experiences with a wide readership can help reduce discrimination and promote mutual understanding. Visit the website: www.liferighting.com

Met sy heel eerste verskyning op televisie as hoërskool-laaitie het Rian van Heerden reeds die volk die josie ingemaak. Sedertdien het hy dikwels koerantvoorblaaie gehaal - en is telkens afgedank! - vir sy omstrede uitlatings. In dié boek skryf hy onbeskaamd oor al die goed wat mense meen hy eerder nié moes gesê het nie. Hy maak vir die eerste keer sy hart oop oor sy persoonlike lewe, sy worsteling met gaywees en sy eerste liefdesverhouding. Blatant eerlik, skreeusnaaks, aangrypend.

A Darker Shade Of Pale tells the story of life as a person of mixed race in apartheid South Africa.

After the National Party gained power in South Africa in 1948, the all-white government took control by legislating their policies of racial segregation under a system called apartheid. Forced to live among the sand dunes and narrow streets of Council housing estates, through her mixed ancestry Beryl was classified as Coloured, not white enough or not black enough. This allowed the government to shape her life, where she was allowed to live, to attend school, to sit on the train, to work, and who she could marry.

Growing up in council housing estates on the Cape Flats in the 1960s and early 1970s it wasn’t until reaching high school that she discovered a richer life on the other side of the tracks for those classified as white. The stark reality of the inequality towards her skin colour made her question her ancestry and her parents’ acceptance of their classification. She was drawn to joining rallies to fight the government but at home any such discussions were strongly dismissed.

It is a remarkable story of the resilience of her parents, particularly her mother Sarah who recognised that the future for her children was through education. Sarah, faced with many challenges – the death of a young child, a husband suffering ill-health, five children to feed and to keep a roof over their head powered the way forward to increase their chances of a better life should apartheid crumble.

A Darker Shade Of Pale is a moving account of Beryl’s family and community life in segregated South Africa – the injustices, humiliation and challenges and finally finding acceptance when she moved to Australia in the 1980s.

“There was no definite decision on the length of the [hunger] strike – it was to go on until their demands for release were met, or until collapse. They became slow and flagging and they didn’t talk much.”

Previously banned and unavailable in South Africa, Helen Joseph writes a moving personal account of enduring the Treason Trial - one of the longest and most important trials in South African history. She shares stories of the Pony Post -the trialists' own postal service and language, the treatment of prisoners, and the ‘real heroes’ of the Trial: the wives of the accused. She writes honestly and details the trialists' perseverance, struggles, compassion and commitment to fighting oppression for all South Africans.

This edition is a vital addition to curating our South African history and to our ever-growing Pocket Series.

Drawing on Nelson Mandela's own unfinished memoir, Dare Not Linger is the remarkable story of his presidency told in his own words and those of distinguished South African writer Mandla Langa.

In 1994, Nelson Mandela became the first president of democratic South Africa. Five years later, he stood down. In that time, he and his government wrought the most extraordinary transformation, turning a nation riven by centuries of colonialism and apartheid into a fully functioning democracy in which all South Africa's citizens, black and white, were equal before the law.

Dare Not Linger is the story of Mandela's presidential years, drawing heavily on the memoir he began to write as he prepared to finish his term of office, but was unable to finish. Now, the acclaimed South African writer, Mandla Langa, has completed the task using Mandela's unfinished draft, detailed notes that Mandela made as events were unfolding and a wealth of previously unseen archival material. With a prologue by Mandela's widow, Graça Machel, the result is a vivid and inspirational account of Mandela's presidency, a country in flux and the creation of a new democracy. It tells the extraordinary story of the transition from decades of apartheid rule and the challenges Mandela overcome to make a reality of his cherished vision for a liberated South Africa.

When the Boer Republics invaded Natal on the north-east coast of what is now South Africa in 1899, they could have been driven out with nominal casualties. Instead, Britain was to lose nearly 9,000 men killed in action, more than 13,000 to disease and a further 75,000 wounded and sick invalided back to Britain. The war ended in 1902 with an unsatisfactory Peace Treaty. The Boer commandoes represented a new challenge to the British Army, practising a mobile form of warfare equipped with smokeless Mauser rifles and modern European field and siege artillery. The British forces did not have the training to deal with this new form of warfare. Perhaps the greatest blunder was the failure in the beginning to take advantage of local advice and capability. The organisation of locally raised Volunteers was designed to meet the threat. They soon demonstrated how the Boers might be defeated and when finally given their heads, they chased the invaders out of Natal at the gallop, while suffering only nominal casualties. When the Siege of Ladysmith was finally raised, the relieving force found the garrison and civilian population suffering from malnutrition and disease. This book uses primary source material to chronicle the experiences of the people of Natal - soldiers and civilians, black and white, men, women and children - during the Natal Campaign.

In The Dark With My Dress On Fire is the remarkable life story of Blanche La Guma, a South African woman who dedicated her life to ending apartheid through her various roles as professional nurse, wife and mother, and underground Communist activist.

Born into a poor, working-class coloured family in Cape Town, Blanche met her future husband, the novelist Alex La Guma, while training as a nurse-midwife in the early 1950s. Together they fought apartheid at great personal risk before continuing the struggle in exile in London and Havana, Cuba.

Harassed, banned, and imprisoned in solitary confinement for her political convictions, Blanche worked as a nurse-midwife in poor black communities on the Cape Flats. With Alex constantly detained or under house arrest, she was the family’s only breadwinner, a role she would continue throughout their life together. When Blanche was not working, visiting her husband in prison, or protecting their two young sons Eugene and Barto from harassment by the security police, she met secretly at night with fellow anti-apartheid Communists. As a young nurse she led the fight against “nursing apartheid” in Cape Town and she provided safe houses for anti-apartheid leaders such as Walter Sisulu and Govan Mbeki.

Forced into exile with her family in 1966, Blanche continued her struggle for justice in London, advocating for better maternal care in a large urban hospital and managing a Soviet Union publications office. When Alex was called to Havana, Cuba, in 1978 as chief representative of the African National Congress (ANC) in the Caribbean, she joined him as a full partner, which included their mentoring of ANC students sent to Cuba after the 1976 Soweto Uprising. Her story provides a rare first-hand account of life as a South African in Fidel Castro’s Cuba until Alex’s death by heart attack in 1985.

Told vividly, passionately, and at times humorously, In the Dark with My Dress on Fire is a compelling account of Blanche La Guma’s struggle against apartheid on three continents. It’s the story of a courageous woman who paid dearly for her commitments yet returned with dignity to a free and democratic South Africa.

In this memoir, the first of two, Dikgang Moseneke pays homage to the many people and places that have helped to define and shape him. These influences include his ancestry; his parents; his immediate and extended family; and his education both in school and on Robben Island as a 15-year-old prisoner. These people and places played a significant role in forming his principled stance in life and his proud defiance of all forms of injustice.

Robben Island became a school not only in politics but an opportunity for dedicated studies towards a law degree that would provide the bedrock for a long and fruitful career. The book charts Moseneke’s rise as one of the country’s top legal minds, who not only helped to draft the Constitution, but for 15 years acted as a guardian of it for all South Africans.

Not only did Moseneke assist in shaping our new Constitution, he has helped to make it a living document for many South Africans over the past 15 years.

Priscilla Jana is a legendary figure in South African revolutionary politics. As an Indian woman who had experienced racial oppression first-hand, she decided to use her degree in law to fight for the rights of her fellow people and do all she could to bring down the Apartheid state - who saw her as a very real threat. At one time she represented every single political prisoner on Robben Island, including both the late Nelson Mandela and his wife Winnie. Priscilla spent her days in court, fighting human rights case after human rights case, but it was at night when her real work was done. As part of an underground cell, she fought tirelessly to bring down the hated government. This activism, however, came at a price. One of South Africa's infamous 'banned persons', for five years Priscilla was unable to take part in any political activities, enter any place where a large number of people were gathered, and had her movements severely restricted. Worse, her own home was attacked with petrol bombs on multiple occasions. Undeterred, Priscilla Jana continued her work, even adopting the baby daughter of a client imprisoned on Robben Island, bringing here up, educating her, and providing a loving home. Finally, upon Mandela's release and the political revolution of her beloved country, Priscilla's work was rewarded, as she was elected as a member of South Africa's first democratic parliament. Later, she was to become an ambassador to both The Netherlands and Ireland. Now retired and living in Cape Town, Priscilla still works and waits for her most fervent desire: the true healing and unification of South Africa.

Late Reggae musician Lucky Dube is undoubtedly one of South Africa’s iconic stars who left a legacy of love, tolerance, and change through his music. His words were weapons fighting racial discrimination, inequality, and all sorts of injustices in the world, awakening the spiritual and cultural heritage of the African people. While most fans are familiar with the performer, very few got to know the man behind the music—a humble, deeply spiritual, courageous, respectful, wise, and prophetic individual.

"Walking a Mile in Your Shoes: My Spiritual Journey with Lucky Dube" is Lenah Mochoele’s tribute to her friend and spiritual mentor. Through her book, Mochoele gives an account of the spiritual journey of the South African-born world-famous reggae star and hit-maker Lucky Dube. His rise from a simple rural life is told through spiritual anecdotes that cast a different light on the straight-talking reggae luminary. The life of Lucky Dube is presented through a lens that gives the reader insight into why the singer, composer, and producer's music focused on the suffering and plight of the poor, as well as human rights abuses, among other chosen subjects.

This aspect of Lucky Dube is brought into the spotlight years after his passing at the hands of criminals—a terrible crime that almost threatened to overshadow the legacy of this achiever, messenger, and musician par excellence.

The book shares stories of Lucky’s early life, the severe struggles and hardships of his youth, through to his deeply philosophical years which manifested in his music, advocating for peace and change wherever he went. His songs continue to reverberate throughout every corridor of our households, our dusty streets, and throughout every length and breadth of Africa, the diaspora, and beyond.

At a spiritual level, this book is a wonderful and powerful reminder to rekindle one's own connection and relationship with God, to live with Him and not renounce Him.

Willie Steyn, the author, was one of six hundred Boer prisoners sent by ship to the island of Ceylon to be interned in the Diyatalawa prisoner-of-war camp during the Anglo-Boer War. While their ship was anchored in Colombo harbour on a dark, moonless night, Steyn and four of his fellow prisoners lowered themselves into the sea, each waiting until his predecessor had got away undetected by the guards on board and in vessels patrolling around the ship.

The charm of Steyn’s personal account of his adventures lies in its understatement and its matter-of-fact simplicity. He does not portray himself as a hero, nor does he lay any claim to fame, but his account gathers intensity and force as the story progresses. Willie Steyn was intent on escape from the moment he was taken into captivity, and the reader experiences a corresponding intensity, encountering Willie as a free spirit throughout his captivity and his protracted journey home.

Deneys Reitz – author of Commando and well known for his own bravery – called Steyn ‘one of our bravest men’, and described Steyn’s escape as ''a deed that is in my opinion without equal in the history of escape.''

What makes a working mother and average athlete decide to take on a massive physical and mental challenge to run, cycle and kayak the perimeter of South Africa, covering 6 772 km in less than five months? Kim van Kets was inspired by her desire to demonstrate to her daughter the fact that mothers are heroes too. She was able to justify the 'time-out' after having built up a credit balance of 150 days owed to her by her adventurer husband. Her story is a positive and enthusiastic 'off the beaten track' South African adventure and is amusing, anecdotal and inspiring.

It tells of the physical and mental challenges of the journey but focuses on stories surrounding the people and places she encountered along the way, including those of the ancient Kalahari farmer who pronounced her to be a 'Ramkat' and the Nama goatherd who seemed doubtful about her gender and anxious to be rid of her. The book is also a wonderful South African travelogue and is studded with nuggets of history and fascinating trivia about the plants, animals, characters and places as well as brief summaries of important life lessons the journey highlighted for the author.

It will leave the reader feeling upbeat, inspired and eager to explore the splendour of the beloved country and its people.

Jami Yeats-Kastner's story is both a personal account of a mother's ultimate loss and a universal message of growth and hope. It is centred on the loss of their young son, Sam, and the deeply spiritual path that this sets her on. It is a very sad book but not a depressing one. Sam's death forces her to confront other personal truths about herself, her life and Sam's older special needs brother, Jack. Jami shares her journey with searing honesty and a wry sense of humour and, as she finds her way back into the light, it becomes less about grief and more about self-discovery, about synchronicity and about following the signs that are everywhere. If this story has a message, it is that finding your own true path is the only way to personal self-fulfilment and that it is only when we are ourselves fulfilled that we can be of proper service to others. Initially an unwilling seeker, this is what Jami eventually discovers, and in doing so she draws on all her available strength and inspirational new insights to continue building a happy future for herself and her young family.

On 19 October 1991, Malaika Lesego Samora Mahlatsi was born at the Meadowlands community clinic, one year and eight months after Mandela's release from prison. The Nationalist Party was still in power, but everyone knew that its grip on political power would draw to an inevitable end sooner rather than later. Memoirs of a born free is a journey back through the life of Malaika Wa Azania as she recounts the experience of growing up through the end of apartheid and South Africa's transition into a democratic nation. She was not born during the times of constitutionalised apartheid but is still a product of an epoch of systematic individualised apartheid. Her story is not a reflection of freedom; it is an epitome of the ongoing struggle for liberation and emancipation from mental slavery. The struggle of the generations before that of the born frees was a struggle for political freedom and democracy and was the foundation for revolution and reform but not the ultimate goal. Malaika contests the notion of the born-free generation when it is a generation that was born in the midst of a struggle for economic freedom and the quest for the realisation of the objectives of the African Renaissance. Now 22 years into a democratic dispensation, Malaika describes her life as having been a struggle to understand the "rainbow nation" and to salvage from it something that renders her free. She did not find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that she was told about as a child. She has, however, through the Thabo Mbeki Foundation, found reason to believe in the capacity of the people to escape the nervous conditions that define Black life. She continues to serve the African Youth Coalition with dedication as believes today, without a shadow of doubt, that another Africa is possible. "Democracy is impossible without political freedom, but political freedom is not the ultimate objective of the revolutionary struggle. The ultimate objective is economic freedom; the liberation of the masses of our people from the clutches of economic bondage. But our people remain in chains, so what about this generation which has the mission of freeing them from those chains is "free"? What about us is reflective of a "born-free generation", when our generation is born during a time of the struggle for economic freedom and the quest for the realisation of the objectives of the African Renaissance agenda?" - Malaika Wa Azania.

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.

In this fascinating account of South Africa’s post-isolation sporting experiences, author Peter Joyce offsets the triumphs that brought the nation glory when the country was finally reintegrated and welcomed back into the international sporting arena against events that set it apart in the dark days of apartheid.

Covering the feats of our golfing greats, swimming sensations, rugby heroes and cricketing giants, this book also reveals the successes South Africans have achieved in lesser-known sporting codes, such as mountaineering and motocross.

Factual yet entertaining, historically accurate yet anecdotal, this is an ideal gift book or collector’s item whether you are a sports fan, a history buff or just a proud South African.

This book is an account of Paul O'Sullivan's role in helping to not only nail South Africa's most powerful policeman, but also the world's top cop. It is based on thousands of pages of emails, statements, affidavits, letters, press reports, court records and transcripts as well as interviews with O'Sullivan himself. This version provides a perspective from his point of view as a key player in the saga. While O'Sullivan's name consistently appears in almost every key breaking story around the Selebi matter, his role, for whatever reason, has been played down.

The Jackie Selebi story, and the satellite narratives that orbited it, is a truly remarkable chronicle that requires commitment and stamina to grasp fully. There is so much detail, so much subterfuge, lying, dishonesty and cover-up by Selebi and his cronies that it is extremely challenging and almost impossible to pick out one comprehensive, linear thread. The drama played itself out in different layers and strata of South African society, sometimes simultaneously and often in an apparently unrelated fashion. The characters that populate the saga, apart from Jackie Selebi, include the then president of the country, his political rival, myriad crooked, corrupt businessmen, a gallery of rotten, very senior rogue cops, a phalanx of undercover intelligence operatives, two- bit hired guns, scrap metal dealers, drug and human traffickers, international criminal syndicates and a cast of thousands of common-or-garden-variety petty thugs and criminals.

"Sounds like a movie," say most of those who have asked about this project. Yes, but what is startling and disturbing is that this is no fairy-tale. Those of us who have become accustomed to the commodification of crime as "entertainment" in popular television series have this need to make sense of it by blurring fiction with chilling reality.

Paul O'Sullivan is no suave James Bond in a tuxedo, equipped with special equipment, downing his martini surrounded by a bevy of women. When dealing with criminals he can be abrasive, brusque and uncompromising. But who wouldn't be in a world that is populated with real thugs and dangerous killers, people who kill, maim and disrupt law and order and destabilise the country? These are sociopaths and psychopaths who do not care how much harm they cause as they go about their "business". So, what drove or drives O'Sullivan? Revenge? A thirst for justice? It's simple really. Paul O'Sullivan hates criminals and low-lifes like dogs hate flies. His long career in international law enforcement has equipped him with the intellectual and physical tools to deal with the most canny and violent of criminals.

He enjoys hunting them down and, like the radioactive bite that imbues Spiderman with special powers, criminals provide O'Sullivan with an energy and a stamina that seems to grow in proportion to the challenges they present him. His work, he says, is far from done. He is presently attempting to ensure that Czech-born fugitive, Radovan Krejcir, is extradited to his home country to face numerous charges.

This is the book President Jacob Zuma does not want you to read. From Shaik to ‘The Spear’, award-winning investigative journalist Adriaan Basson reveals the truth behind Jacob Zuma’s presidency of the ANC and South Africa.

From one bad decision to another, this explosive, roller-coaster account traces the unravelling of a likeable but deeply flawed leader who came to power as victim, not visionary. Basson forensically unpacks the charges against Zuma and reveals a president whose first priority is to serve and protect his own, rather than the 50 million people he was elected to lead.

To be published on the eve of the ANC elective conference in Mangaung, this is essential reading for any South African who cares about the country they live in.

’n Biografie oor Pik Botha, een van Suid-Afrika se kleurrykste figure, en in sy tyd die langsdienende Minister van Buitelandse Sake ter wêreld.