Die kortverhale in Maansiek verken 'n wye register: die Rooms-Katolieke geloof, charismatiese aanbidding, Afrika-mistiek, erotiek en moederskap, konflik tussen ras en geslag en sosiale status, spanning tussen die hede en die historiese, die sienlike en die onsienlike.

As basis vir sommige verhale dien 'n nugter koerantberig of tydskrifartikel uit vervloe dekades wat binne die verhaalkonteks tegelyk humoristies en ontstellend is.

Ander is gegrond op minder bekende aspekte van bekende figure of vertellings van onbekende vroue met uiteenlopende agtergronde.

"Stick with me, baby. Ek kan nie belowe dat ek jou famous sal maak nie. Maar jy sal fun he langs die pad. "Met die woorde lei die mooi, rebelse Dalena haar nuwe vriendin, Mart, 'n wereld in waaroor ordentlike tienermeisies net in die donker fluister. So begin 'n inisiasieproses wat met opwinding, maar ook met ontnugtering en pyn gepaard gaan. Die dinge van 'n kind is ’n onthutsende eerlike boek oor die begin van vrouwees, en die verlies van onskuld op seksuele, politieke en morele vlak.

Young Naledi wants to trade her bantu knots for Nonhle Thema’s hair on the Dark and Lovely box. She wishes she looked more like her light-skinned mother too. Ledi grows up in Pimville with her strict grandmother Mama Norah, while her mother, Dineo, is out chasing the blesser lifestyle.

Bantu Knots follows Ledi as she navigates the pressures of her circumstances, womanhood and beauty ideals – and pursues her dreams in spite of it all.

What makes Pat Simmons, a retired engineer, give up his comfortable middle class living and wade across a crocodile infested river with a bicycle strapped to his back, in order to teach chess to schoolchildren at the Mission station?

When Natasha, a novice writer from South Africa, is nominated for a major British literary prize, Terence, a young university lecturer, undertakes to introduce her to the sights of London.

However, London and its literary cliques are a far cry from Natasha’s Karoo hometown: through no fault of her own, she is disqualified, and their affair ends in tragedy. Terence, whose best friend accuses him of suffering from a Good Samaritan complex, now takes an interest in a rough sleeper and his dog that he meets outside a tube station.

This turns out to be a complex undertaking. As the ghosts of his past relationships are visited upon him, Terence is forced to reconsider the meaning of human connections – how our lives touch, and are touched by, others.

Michiel Heyns’s Each Mortal Thing shows us the metropolis through fresh eyes, calculates the cost of acts of kindness, and speaks to the grace that friendship can bestow on us.

Reisgenote bevat ʼn keur uit die kortverhaalbundel, Die reisgenoot, wat oorspronklik in 2013 ingedien is as kreatiewe komponent van ʼn meestersgraadstudie aan die Universiteit van die Vrystaat (onder leiding van prof HP van Coller).

As simboliese “reisgenote” is enkele gedigte getoonset wat tematies aansluit by Joanita se eie verhale. Die “reisgenote” is tematies van aard, maar ook in die gesprek tussen tekste, musikale werke en die kunstenaars wat betrokke was by die projek.

’n Meesleurende roman oor ’n verbode passie en ’n politieke intrige. Dis gebaseer op ’n werklike historiese insident, en die gevolge daarvan: Die ontmoeting in 1940 tussen Dr DF Malan en ‘n Duitse spioen, mev Thyra Denk. Nou, in 1946, kry Dieter Bergman, ’n senior polisieman, instruksies om mev Denk per trein van Windhoek na Kaapstad te vergesel, waar sy voor ’n Gekose Komitee van die Parlement moet getuig. As daar bewys kan word dat Malan met die Nazi’s meegewerk het tydens die Tweede Wereldoorlog, kan hy van hoogverraad aangekla word en sal dit die einde van sy politieke loopbaan beteken. Tydens die lang reis per trein ontstaan daar ‘n verhouding tussen Bergman en die beeldskone spioen. Op die trein is egter ook ene adv Doerkstra. Sy missie: hy moet die spioen in die geheim te sien kry en haar oorrreed om nie met haar getuienis Malan se loopbaan te vernietig nie...

Tshepo, a young student at Rhodes, has a difficult time keeping up with his own strange mind. He is absorbed in making sense of a traumatic past in a violent country and so when he finds himself at the Valkenberg mental facility it is perhaps not entirely due to “cannabis-induced psychosis”.

How is he to bring together the shattered pieces of his life? In the shady subculture of male prostitution Tshepo begins to find answers for the first time.

Discovering first his true sexuality, and then that sexuality is only a key to the greater realms of a hidden, mythical humanity, Tshepo can finally tap into the ancient powers that are his birthright.

Op die oog af is dié roman ’n storie oor ’n goeie dokter en ’n slegte polisieman. Want ’n bosluisbyt aan die polisieman Frans Schuin lei onverwags tot ’n tydperk van verwarring by die plattelandse dokter Gustav van Aardt. Van Aardt is een van die volrondste personasies wat in baie jare in ’n Afrikaanse roman na vore getree het, en wat so heerlik is van sy uitbeelding is dat hy so nugter as ’n feilbare, onsekere volwassene geskets word. Die leser sien deur Van Aardt se oë - maar soos ons mettertyd agterkom, is daar nie werklik uitsluitsel oor die dinge wát hy sien nie. Is dit drogbeelde of werklike visuele waarnemings? En gaan hy mettertyd vrede maak met sy plek op die aarde?

Die titel van dié fassinerende roman deur die skrywer van Kamphoer kan op baie dinge slaan; onder meer op die verlies van alle sekerheid, selfs op die kleinste vlak. Dit sê eindelik baie oor die transformasie wat Suid-Afrika besig is om te ondergaan, uit die oogpunt van ’n hoogs gekultiveerde wit man.  

In Julie 1905 kry Siegfried Bock van die Kaiserliche Landespolizei te kampe met ’n plaaslike boer se grudood, spoke uit sy verlede en ’n Berlynse besoeker wat ’n dodelike wrok koester. Hy worstel met Duits-Suidwes-Afrika se onstuimige politiek en ongenaakbare natuur. As hy geregtigheid wil laat seëvier, moet hy dít, asook strominge in sy eie gemoed, te bowe kom. 'Tweegevreet bied, soos sy voorganger, Die vertes in, spanning én stof tot nadenke.

After years teaching Romantic poetry at the University of Cape Town, David Lurie, middle-aged and twice divorced has an impulsive affair with a student. The affair sours; he is denounced and summoned before a committee of inquiry. Willing to admit his guilt, but refusing to yield to pressure to repent publicly, he resigns and retreats to daughter Lucy’s isolated smallholding.

For a time, his daughter’s influence and the natural rhythms of the farm promise to harmonise his discordant life. But the balance of power in the country is shifting. He and Lucy become victims of a savage and disturbing attack which brings into relief all the faultlines in their relationship.

Few in his native Scotland know about Thomas Pringle – the abolitionist, publisher, and – some would say – Father of South African Poetry. A biography of Pringle is in order, and a reluctant writer takes up this task.

To help tell the story of Pringle is the spectre of Mary Prince, a West Indian slave whose history he had once published. Also offering advice is the ghost of Hinza Marossi, Pringle’s adopted Khoesan son, and the timetraveller Sir Nicholas Greene, a character exhumed from the pages of a book.

While Mary is breathing fire and Sir Nicholas’s heart is pining, Hinza is interrogating his origins. But what is to be made of the life of Pringle so many years after his death by this motley crew from the 1800s?

As the apparitions flit through time and space to put together the pieces of Pringle’s story and find their own place in his biography, Zoë Wicomb’s novel offers an acerbic exploration of colonial history in superb prose and with piercing wit.

How do stories begin, and why? What are the conditions for writing fiction? Need, compulsion, a listener, opportunity, rhetoric …

In The Snow Sleeper, the art and meaning of storytelling is illuminated in four magically interwoven tales of friendship. In each, a narrator’s narrow vision is gradually broadened and transformed into piercing self-knowledge.

“The Swan Whisperer”: A creative writing lecturer receives a series of bizarre missives from an eccentric student, which bring into question her most dearly held literary convictions.

“The Percussionist”: At his best friend’s funeral, a clockmaker delivers a eulogy that, in recalling the writer’s voyeuristic obsessions, explores the nature of love and friendship.

“The Snow Sleeper”: A fieldworker interviewing the homeless is confronted with her own grief by a most articulate and charismatic vagrant.

“The Friend”: The confidante of a famous photographer acknowledges her role in his decline. A story that resonates with the interplay of the artistic and political in South Africa today.

These characters, all alter egos, are linked each to the other in strange, recurring loops, drawing the reader into the depths of a beautiful snowstorm.     

Original and forceful, At Fire Hour delivers Bheki Makhathini, a South African character study for the ages.

Suspected of betraying the ANC, the young poet leaves home for exile in 1976, and until his return home after the unbannings in 1990, Bheki writes the story of a revolution – an unfinished one.

Gilder allows Bheki the freedom to deal with the big ideas of art and love, freedom and struggle in a shrewd and vivid way, the result being an unforgettable and deeply moving tale.

“Vang jy hom onbehoeds van voor, dan lyk hy soos ‘n man wat nou net met ’n stok geslaan is. Maar hou hom dop uit die hoek van jou oog, dan bespeur jy die glorie van ’n slim man. ’n Mooi man.”

George is gebore toe Jan Smuts dood is, word op ’n plaas in die Noord-Kaap groot, dien as aaspeloton in Angola, raak deurmekaar met die Baader-Meinhofbende in Duitsland, werk as joernalis tydens die noodtoestande in Kaapstad, maar op die ou end word hy ’n saboteur, ’n skaapsmokkelaar, ’n mal man, ’n boemelaar. Tussendeur kul en koggel George prokureurs, kopdokters, en vroue.

Gedeeltelik bewolk is ’n pittige, aweregse debuutroman wat jou soos ’n vuishou in die maag slaan.

Sipho is a “young blood”, a young man of the school-going generation caught up in a world of money, booze and greed.

Living in Umlazi, Durban, he is seventeen, has dropped out of school and helps out at his father’s mechanic shop during the day. But odd jobs underneath the bonnets of wrecked cars do not provide the lifestyle his friends have.

A fascinating look into the emotional landscape of car hijackers – by a vibrant new voice in South African literature.

Jare lank al is Lauretta Blom ’n gedienstige huisvrou in haar beige paleis, die eggenoot van Tobias Blom, ’n suksesvolle sakeman met belange in Johannesburg én die Kaap. Maar met hulle seunskinders wat nou groot en uit die huis uit is, begin die stilte en die pynlike netheid van Retta se praghuis in die Johannesburgse sekuriteitslandgoed haar vasdruk. En sy wonder oor al die dinge wat sy nié gedoen het nie en hoe dit haar lewe gevorm het.

Wanneer sy boonop begin vermoed dat Tobie vir haar iets wegsteek, besluit sy dat dit tyd is om dié dinge te doen wat sy nooit tevore aangedurf het nie.

Eerste op die lys is ’n road trip Kaap toe saam met haar hond, Charlie, en haar kunstenaarsvriendin, Leigh. Die reis lei na die ontwaking van ’n nuwe Retta op ’n kleinhoewe buite Bethulie, maar ook na onthullings in die Kaap wat haar hele lewe omverwerp.

When zoologist Magrieta Prinsloo is put on the wrong antidepressant, her head comes unstuck. She insults the head of her department, and impulsively resigns from her job. She accepts a position at the Bureau for Continuing Education, with the inscrutable Markus Potsdam as her boss. When he disappears one morning, matters become very complicated. Winterbach's extraordinary gift as a novelist, and uncanny understanding of the human psyche, are again as evident as ever.

Die dag toe Pappie die kaleidoskoop stukkend gekap het, het ’n paar van die gekleurde skywe ver weggespat en in die lang gras gaan skuil. Later, nadat die ouman weg was poskantoor toe, het hy die stukkies gaan bymekaar maak – ’n paar geles, ’n mooi groene en ’n klompie bloues en perses. Die res was gewone spieëltjies en hy het net ’n paar daarvan opgetel. Maar daar was bitter min van sy droom oor.

Hy voel die hitte van daardie dag se woede deur hom spoel. Sien weer die arend teen die lug draai en die skelm blink van die paar stukkies glas in die lang gras. Dan ontspan hy. Sy lewe was nooit heel nie. Altyd in stukke. Tronk was sy voorland – soos Pa voorspel het …

NOU gaan Schoeman huis toe.

MAAR sal hy nou die liefde en aanvaarding kry waarna hy smag, of sal hy steeds nie goed genoeg wees nie …?

KALEIDOSKOOP is ‘n historiese roman wat die verhaal van Schoeman en sy familielede vertel. Die besonderse verhaal van lief en leed sal jou as kieskeurige leser enduit boei.

Die verhaal van 'n slavin wat as die enigste oorlewende van 'n mislukte ekspedisie in die hart van Afrika haar terugtrek in die hol stam van 'n kremetartboom. In toenemende verlatenheid herleef sy haar vroeëre bestaan: hoe sy as kind in haar tuisdorp gevange geneem en weggevoer is, haar lewe in 'n hawestad aan die ooskus as dienares van verskillende meesters, haar reis saam met haar laaste eienaar en beskermheer, haar lewe in die kremetartboom.

Hierdie belangrike Afrikaanse roman is reeds in verskeie ander tale gepubliseer, o.m. in Engels deur J.M. Coetzee. Die Italiaanse vertaling word bekroon met die Grinzane Cavour-prys in 1988 en in 1995 word die Franse vertaling verwerk vir die verhoog en opgevoer in die Thèâtre de l'Ante in Parys.

"Solank Afrikaans bestaan, sal dié boek waarskynlik die essensie daarvan bly verwarm." – Antjie Krog

With the unexpected arrival of a package from South Africa, the epic love stories of three vastly different women slowly unfold.

But what did the package contain that has forced the women of the Gordon household to finally reveal their secrets? Why did they conceal the truth from each other for so many years?

As Hannah, Beatrice and Zendaya share their passionate tales from the depths of their hearts; they unravel relationships of racial segregation, forbidden love, societal stigma, seduction and abuse. What they are yet to discover is that one man links their stories. But whose true love is he?

Embark on a journey of mystery, suspense, drama and love that spans across three generations.

Nadine Gordimer's subtle and detailed study of the forces and relationships seething in the South Africa of the day.

Mehring is rich. He has all the privileges and possessions that South Africa has to offer, but his possessions refuse to remain objects. His wife, son and mistress leave him; his foreman and workers become increasingly indifferent to his stewardship; even the land rises up, as drought, then flood, destroy his farm. As the upheaval in Mehring's world increasingly resembles that in the country as a whole, it becomes clear that only a seismic shift in ideas and concrete action can avert annihilation.

“I am his first wife.”

Is that how low you think of me? You think I will run and rat you out to Raymond? Let me tell you something, Raymond is not my husband without you. He needs you, he inhales and exhales because of you, he adores you, Anelisa, because you are his first wife.