In the wake of her beloved grandfather’s death, Lou and her family gather at their coastal family home for a long-awaited family reunion.

The windswept and wild surroundings remind Lou of who she was before being a mother, a wife, and a professional failure. They bring back memories of Michael, her toxic first love and, according to the family, her ‘bad luck penny’. Then a shocking crisis in the country disrupts the funeral arrangements and forces the family together for longer than planned.

As secrets rise to the surface, the threads of Lou’s life unravel and she faces a difficult choice – after all, it’s only a bad luck penny if you pick it up.

“Hillbrow, 1967. The New York of Africa. Someone wrote that the place would soon have more people per square kilometre than Tokyo. Everyone quoted that article to everyone. Some even cut it out and kept it folded in their wallets.”

While other boys daydream about racing cars and football, eleven-year-old stutterer Phen sits reading to his father. In number four Duchess Court, Phen’s dad looks like a Spitfire pilot behind his oxygen mask. But real life is different from the daring adventures in the books Phen reads and he is forced to grow up faster than other boys his age. This is until Heb Thirteen Two shows up: in his pinstriped suit pants and tie-dyed psychedelic top, the stranger could be any old bum, or a boy’s special angel come to live among men.

Poignant, witty and wise, John Hunt's "The Boy Who Could Keep a Swan in His Head" is a meditation on being alive and shows us the power of books when we need them the most.

This is not a love story. This is IMPOSSIBLE.

"Sometimes love doesn’t come in the form you think it will."

Nick: Failed writer. Failed husband. Dog owner.

Bee: Serial dater. Dress maker. Pringles enthusiast.

When fate brings them together over a misdirected email, the connection is instant. They feel like they’ve known each other all their lives...

It should have been the perfect love story. Instead it was IMPOSSIBLE.

Durban North, 1997. Following two shocking and insidious incidents of violence, nineteen-year-old Mary Da Costa is flying to Auckland ahead of her parents to make a new start. She is riddled with reservations – New Zealand is where her late brother was supposed to move – and all she really wants to do is keep to herself and work on her art.

On arrival, Mary comes under the wings of the South African ex-pat community, struggling with its own tensions between homesickness and belonging. Finding work at a local dairy, she meets self-appointed Māori leader Nepukaneha Cooper – Buck, as he’s better known. He and his family have some history with these rugby-mad lovers of apartheid, even more now that they’re encroaching on his turf. If only he had the means to fight them off and realise his life-long dream of establishing a marae on the beautiful strip of coast he has always called home.

Meanwhile, adrift between past and present, Mary is forced to dig deep in order to find her own truths and place in the world.

Nick Mulgrew’s long-awaited debut novel – of grand metaphors, silences, absences, and two cities and countries in flux – is a delightfully innovative, surprising, and warm-hearted meditation on family, loss, and home, as well as a deft examination of dislocation, dispossession, and the cultural blind spots of two very different (and in some ways similar) communities.

Burnt out after years as a professional dancer, Ella Burchell moves to a small town on the KwaZulu Natal north coast hoping to rebuild her life. Things look up when she gets a job teaching dance to children at a for-profit private school.

But Ella hasn't reckoned with the cabal of private-school mums who run the Pines Academy as their own personal fiefdom. Circling into cliques at the school gates every morning, the mums are a force to be reckoned with.

Soon Ella is too busy fielding their demands to concentrate on her own troubles. Distraction arrives in the form of an attractive cricket coach, but Ella hardly has time to pay attention.

Fun, fast-paced and hilarious, this novel by an award-winning author skewers the world of private-school privilege.

20 South African Short Stories brought to you by Short.Sharp.Stories.

A fraudster cashes out of a life of crime, a mother has a splendid affair, a brave woman never gives up, a graffiti artist spray-paints the city; a poignant friendship comes to a climax in a retirement home, a storyteller understands his true power, a friend delivers a heart-rending eulogy; a young South African searches for belonging in Hong Kong, while another takes a risk assisting a local artist; a photographer explores eroticism through the lens and the body, a group of reggae fans cross borders to seek freedom with Bob Marley, a drummer is haunted by the jazz of Sophiatown; a book on slavery offers a troubled woman a way out, a student faces an impossible choice, the blood moon shines on a forbidden passion … and so much more, as each short story captures the unique moment and meaning of ONE LIFE.

The anthology’s contributors are largely established South African authors who have a track record in the publishing industry, as well as exciting emerging writers. The writers include Stella Douglas, Carmen Gee, Karen Jennings, Joel Kelly, Werner Labuschagne, David Mann, Lerato Mahlangu, Don Makatile, Juliette Mnqeta, Tshidiso Moletsane, Nontobeko Mtshali, Vuyokazi Ngemntu, Jana van Niekerk, Thango Ntwasa, Andrew Prior, Sihle Qwabe, Srila Roy, Khensani Sayiya, Megan Tennant and Jarred Thompson.

From the acclaimed and award-winning author of What Will People Say?, Rehana Rossouw takes us into a world seemingly filled with promise yet bedevilled by shadows from the past. In this astonishing tour de force Rossouw illuminates the tensions inherent in these new times.

Ali Adams is a political reporter in Parliament. As Nelson Mandela begins his second year as president, she discovers that his party is veering off the path to freedom and drafting a new economic policy that makes no provision for the poor. She follows the scent of corruption wafting into the new democracy’s politics and uncovers a major scandal. She compiles stories that should be heard when the Truth Commission gets underway, reliving the recent brutal past. Her friend Lizo works in the Presidency, controls access to Madiba’s ear. Another friend, Munier, is beating at the gates of Parliament, demanding attention for the plague stalking the land.

Aaliyah Adams lives with her devout Muslim family in Bo-Kaap. Her mother is buried in religion after losing her husband. Her best friend is getting married, piling up the pressure to get settled and pregnant. There is little tolerance for alternative lifestyles in the close-knit community. The Rugby World Cup starts and tourists pour up the slopes above the city, discovering a hidden gem their dollars can afford.

Ali/Aaliya is trapped with her family and friends in a tangle of razor-wire politics and culture, can she break free?

Told with Rehana’s trademark verve and exquisite attention to language you will weep with Aaliya, triumph with Ali, and fall in love with the assemblage that makes up this ravishing new novel.

The Cape Peninsula carries secrets known only to the wind, the fynbos, and the creatures that live there. One day, six teenage boys are found raped, murdered, and dumped down the side of its mountains.

It is two years since the discovery of the first body and Detective Junaid Japtha is no closer to cracking the case. With pressure mounting, and without any tangible evidence, he can only rely on his experience and instinct to track down the killer.

Fifteen-year-old Tyrone May from Macassar spends his days in limbo. He has no one to talk to. No one listens. He is curious and confused about his feelings. Like most boys, he has yet to develop a sense of his own mortality. It allows for a daring that will dissipate as he grows older, but, for now, Tyrone will accept the friend request a handsome stranger sends him.

Elton Baatjies is the newly appointed teacher at a local high school. These are his people, and he is soon embraced by the close-knit community. But he is tied to the six dead boys in ways no one could have predicted, and the secrets among them threaten to tear the sleepy mountain town apart.

If You Keep Digging is a moving collection of short stories, which will resonate with a South African audience. The selection of stories highlights marginalised identities and looks at the daily lives of people who may otherwise be forgotten or dismissed.

Monkeys is a skillful commentary on domestic violence, toxic masculinity, patriarchy (and how it is racialised), power dynamics between white and black men and how children come to “know” that they are white or black. Skinned, whose protagonist is a woman with albinism, is a powerful story about learning to accept that you deserve love when the world constantly tells you otherwise. In Fourteen the author deftly demonstrates the ability to play with concepts of time and reality. It is a compelling story about potential and how one can feel unfulfilled despite having hopes and ambitions.

The collection is also deeply concerned with covering the early post democracy years in South Africa. Each of the characters deals with questions around the “new” country. The book implores one to think about diverse topics and perspectives, difficult family relationships, abandonment, social and class issues, power dynamics at school and at work, mental illness, witchcraft, sexuality, domestic abuse and the ancestral realm, among other things.

A thrilling array of African writers, including Fred Khumalo, Sibongile Fisher, Lucas Ledwaba, Vonani Bila, Lynn Joffe and Christopher Mlalazi, tell surprising and unnerving tales in this collection of commissioned stories from the master of narrative writing, Niq Mhlongo.

These stories give answers to the question: what does being haunted and hauntings mean in our southern African world, in the past, the present and the future?

Adam Askew, a young man in a hurry, always wanted to be financially independent. Armed with guts, determination and a cocky self-assurance, he sets up a shipping company with a view to take on the world, one ton of cargo at a time.

Fed up with the cliquey set-up in Durban, he takes a gutsy gamble – the biggest risk of his life – one that will ultimately make or break him. He heads for the big city lights of swanky 80s Joburg and is soon wining and dining at the top of the Carlton, sipping the best champagne in London and making some enemies along the way.

Set in the closing decades of the 20th century in sanction-wracked South Africa, Pleasures of the Harbour navigates a world of dodgy business partners, dubious deals and a few failed attempts at love before Adam can finally, and honestly, say he’s made it.

Part adventure, part action, and lots of wheeling and dealing means readers are in for a rollicking ride in this highly entertaining novel that traverses the high seas and low roads of Southern Africa, while opening boardroom and a few bedroom doors along the way.

A poignant tale of self-discovery, love, and community set against the backdrop of post-apartheid South Africa.

The story follows Unathi’s journey as she searches for her mother, Mavis, while navigating her identity. Raised by her grandmother, Gogo, in the village of Moya, where mothers are eerily absent, Unathi must confront the complexities of her sexuality, cultural heritage, and sense of belonging.

As she explores lesbian love, interracial relationships, and the quest for her mother’s truth, Unathi must also contend with the harsh realities of identity politics and the masks she must wear to survive.

Op ’n winterdag in 1945 ontferm ’n kinderlose wit egpaar, Sara en Erik de Graaff, hulle oor ’n driejarige halwe weeskind – Mina Afrika. Hulle wil haar graag ’n kans in die lewe gee. Terwyl Mina nog vol ambisie haar toekoms beplan dryf die verraderlike daad van ’n ryk jong wit man haar weg uit die Vallei, laat haar beland in ’n eindelose spiraal van bedrog. ’n Lewe van vernedering in Groenpunt en tussen die bendes van Distrik Ses.

Samuel has lived alone for a long time; one morning he finds the sea has brought someone to offer companionship and to threaten his solitude …

A young refugee washes up unconscious on the beach of a small island inhabited by no one but Samuel, an old lighthouse keeper. Unsettled, Samuel is soon swept up in memories of his former life on the mainland: a life that saw his country suffer under colonisers, then fight for independence, only to fall under the rule of a cruel dictator; and he recalls his own part in its history. In this new man’s presence he begins to consider, as he did in his youth, what is meant by land and to whom it should belong. To what lengths will a person go in order to ensure that what is theirs will not be taken from them?

A novel about guilt and fear, friendship and rejection; about the meaning of home.

Following on from his bestselling novels A Year in the Wild and Back to the Bush, James Hendry returns to the setting of Sasekile Private Game Reserve for another tale that takes the reader behind the scenes with the MacNaughton brothers, Angus and Hugh.

It is three and a half years since Angus’s last year in the wild when he was newly appointed to the position of head ranger at Sasekile. Much has happened in the interim.

In Return to the Wild there is high drama, much hilarity and many close encounters with wildlife, fire and human incompetence as Angus unexpectedly returns to Sasekile to take on the training of a motley group of would-be game rangers with his usual stark but eloquent honesty. Alongside him, Hugh manages the lodge and its colourful staff with a varying degree of competence as events lurch from mishap to potential catastrophe.

Whether you are a fan of the MacNaughtons’ previous misadventures or a reader new to their story, Return to the Wild is a highly amusing, engaging and heartfelt read.

Paris, 1958. A skirmish in a world-famous restaurant leaves two men dead and the restaurant staff baffled. Why did the head waiter, a man who’s been living in France for many years, lunge at his patrons with a knife?

As the man awaits trial, a journalist hounds his long-time friend, hoping to expose the true story behind this unprecedented act of violence.

Gradually, the extraordinary story of Pitso Motaung, a young South African who volunteered to serve with the Allies in the First World War, emerges. Through a tragic twist of fate, Pitso found himself on board the ss Mendi, a ship that sank off the Isle of Wight in February 1917. More than six hundred of his countrymen, mostly black soldiers, lost their lives in a catastrophe that official history largely forgot. One particularly cruel moment from that day will remain etched in Pitso’s mind, resurfacing decades later to devastating effect.

Dancing The Death Drill recounts the life of Pitso Motaung. It is a personal and political tale that spans continents and generations, moving from the battlefields of the Boer War to the front lines in France and beyond. With a captivating blend of pathos and humour, Fred Khumalo brings to life a historical event, honouring both those who perished in the disaster and those who survived.

When the taxi Mandy is riding in runs out of petrol, she and her companion are stranded alongside a country road with their fellow passengers, all of whom are Zulu.

While they wait for help, friendships develop as they share problems and stories and Mandy finds herself drawn to 8-year-old Jabulani, an AIDS orphan. She determines to help the boy, but what she proposes to do is not an easy road to follow; she faces legal and logistical problems, and much opposition.

There is one person who supports her though, a lawyer whom she meets in Durban. Meeting him adds to her dilemma and she is torn by conflicting loyalties.

Joburg Noir is a collection of writings about memories, legends, loss, jokes, stories, myths and experiences by twenty-two gifted and versatile authors in South Africa. It makes the reader experience present-day Johannesburg as if one were in the past. The stories seek to understand, reconstruct, reinvent and recover this city space of loss, joy, deprivation, resistance and possibility by revealing its complex dynamics. They are funny, shocking, violent, absurd, strangely tender and memorable.

Their lasting resonance lies in the fact that they invoke the joys and traumas of the past and present, making the two to co-exist and interlock. After reading this uncompromising and gritty anthology, the reader is bound to feel like a time-traveller who has voyaged into a magical alternate city and a reality that was either misnamed or not named at all. The intention is to help the readers to delve into their own memories in search of pictures of their sweet childhood and fractured identities.

Contributors: Sam Mathe; Fred Khumalo; Lidudumalingani; Keletso Mopai; Sibongile Fisher; Kgomotso Masemola; Styles Lucas Ledwaba; Mapule Mohulatsi; Khanyi Magubane; Sifiso Mzobe; Gloria Bosman; Nedine Moonsamy; Yewande Omotso; Mabel Mnesa; Nthikeng Mohlele; Eusebius McKaiser; Siphiwo Mahala; Nkateko Masinga; Mzuvukile Maqetuka; Sydney Mojoko; Michelle van Heerden.

It’s 1899 and Philippa’s fiancé Nduku has just broken off their engagement. She is heartbroken – after all, she has followed him from Kimberley, where they first met, to the goldfields of Johannesburg. In this bustling new city, tensions are mounting between the South African Republic and the gold-hungry British Empire. When war is declared, the mines are shut down and migrant workers ordered to leave town.

But how do you get home and out of harm’s way when there are no running trains and home is hundreds of kilometres away? You walk. Over perilous terrain Nduku and Philippa and seven thousand others walk to Natal. Disguised as a mineworker’s wife, for Philippa is white, she and Nduku talk about their true histories, about their fears and hopes, and with every footfall the possibility of lasting happiness seems within reach – if only they can survive, and if only they can weather the storm of an unexpected third player in their troubled romance.

Set during an incredible event in South African history, The Longest March is a tale of heady determination, and a tribute to the perseverance and courage of ordinary men and women when faced with extraordinary circumstances.

A comedy about a group of book lovers who literally lose the plot.

Norma Jacobs is your average accountant, running a book club on Facebook and living quietly with her boyfriend in London. Except for the part where she’s being threatened by a deranged author and questioned by the police about attempted murder. All just as she’s started a new job as the only forty-two-yearold intern in the history of publishing.

Harry Shields is a crime writer desperate to hit the big time when a negative review of his latest book on Norma’s page results in him having a spectacular public meltdown. He gets cancelled, his events get cancelled, and before you can say ‘author behaving badly’, he’s plotting revenge and stalking his nemesis. By the time Harry’s gone viral, and Norma’s given up trying to stop him, the online book club has over a hundred thousand rowdy members, and the comments section is a (literal) riot. Entertaining until one member ends up
in a coma.

A savagely funny satire about online media and cancel culture for everyone who thinks books are harmless. With elements of The Echo Chamber and The Jane Austen Book Club, this hilarious novel is for all those who love reading, social media and rum-and-raisin ice cream.

Liora word groot op ’n volstruisplaas in Algerië, naby die Sahara. Sy is omring deur mense wat lief is vir haar, Maman en haar tante, oom Moshe, en haar pa, wanneer hy in die rondte is. Van kleins af bring sy tyd deur in haar tante se pluimery, ’n magiese omgewing waar volstruisvere omskep word in kostuums vir die filmbedryf en die verhoë van Parys.

Maar Liora loop haar telkens in grense vas wat sy moet oor. En in Algerië broei onrus. Eers verhuis sy na die oorloggeteisterde Algiers waar sy leer om dokter te word, maar dan word sy gedwing om inderhaas landuit te vlug, Parys toe.

Jare later kom Liora, steeds verwonderd oor die skoonheid van volstruisvere, in die Klein-Karoo aan om oom Moshe te besoek. Hier ontmoet sy Candice, ook behep met volstruisvere, ’n priester, ’n kunstenares en ander Kannalanders. Haar lewe word opnuut omgedop, en weer eens lê daar ’n grens voor haar – en sy moet besluit of sy dit sal oorsteek.

Vimbai, a final-year law student at the University of Zimbabwe, is determined not to join the long line of unemployed graduates. She'd would rather trade sexual favours to get a job than go back to living with her aunt-turned-stepmother. Unlike her roommate, Nosihle, she prides herself on being pragmatic. Nosihle is the good girl who mistakenly falls in love with the wrong man and then there’s Ruby, the spoilt socialite who is leading a double life.

Through their messy choices, their lives become intertwined. Vimbai is looking for someone who can offer her the opulence and grandeur of the Sunshine City. Even if it means sleeping with Cheropa, the former first son and Ruby’s boyfriend. It’s a dog-eat-dog world after all. But Vimbai soon learns that every action has a consequence and some of our wishes come to haunt us when we are at our happiest.

Her carefully orchestrated life takes a nosedive when her secrets are held against her by a mysterious well-connected man.

Een aand in 1914 word Koos de la Rey op pad na ’n rebellie noodlottig gewond. Die teiken was die bendelid William Foster. Dat De la Rey in die spervuur beland het, was pure toeval. Of was dit?

Die roman is 'n verweefde tapisserie waarin die verhale van vele vertel word: die storie van o.a. Billy Foster se dogter, Helena; die trawalle van die hensopper Segrys Heyns en sy agterryer Tappies Mahlangu; die speurtog van poliesman Isak Heyns.

’n Merkwaardige, hoogs leesbare geskiedkundige roman.

‘Why can you not be friends anymore?’

It was the story of his country, he supposed. Perhaps they could have been friends. Perhaps they were once. The reasons were complex, full of feeling, disappointment, resentment. And, of course, betrayal. This was the Middle East after all.

Avi Dahan, a retired detective mourning his beloved wife in Tel Aviv, and Khalid Mansour, a Palestinian doctor confronting the precarious reality of living in Gaza City, are still reeling from the political fallout that jeopardised their delicate friendship. When a mysterious corpse scarred by history and forbidden love shows up in Khalid’s emergency room, he reaches out to Avi for help. Though the detective is the only one who might be able to assist, he is the last person on earth to agree …

The stage is set for Andrew Brown’s unforgettable new novel, The Bitterness of Olives.

Did it really matter? In the face of chaos, was it important how she had died? That was the guidance he needed from Avi now. He needed to understand that question: did it matter anymore? Was it of any significance, how you died in a war?

Die Kapenaars Hester Human en haar argitekman, André, het besluit om ’n verwaarloosde huis op ’n plattelandse dorp in Frankryk te koop en te restoureer as ’n vakansiehuis. ’n Jaar in Provence sal hulle en hul twee kinders, Manon en Emile, net goed doen.

Maar net voordat hul jaar in Provence aanbreek, gebeur daar iets tragies wat die Humans se lewe vir altyd verander.

Die huisrestourasie gaan voort, maar die gesin spartel om te verwerk wat gebeur het.