In a village in Venda, Thandeka has a chance encounter with a business tycoon that offers her the words of comfort she has been longing to hear. They don’t exchange names but she is shocked to learn from a friend that he is a serial womaniser. Gundo is delighted when the beautiful woman he met in Venda shows up as a cleaner at his company in Johannesburg. He would love to get to know Thandeka better. He doesn’t realise that she has been misinformed about his identity and his intentions . . .

Ná jare van ontbering vind Mina Afrika geluk in Whitewing Lodge, ’n gastehuis op die rotse naby Visbaai. In die moderne kombuis leef sy haar ten volle uit as sjef; sy raak al hoe meer betrokke by die interessantste mense. Dan verander 'n doodgewone aankondiging oor bykomende gaste vir middagete alles.

Skielik word dit weer nag vir Mina. En vir die mense naaste aan haar.

*Winner of the UJ Debut Prize*

Family secrets run deep for Grace, a young girl growing up in Cape Town during the 1980s, spilling over into adulthood, and threating to ruin the respectable life she has built for herself.

When an old childhood friend reappears, Grace’s memories of her childhood come rushing back, and she is confronted, once again, with the loss that has shaped her. The novel is permeated with the long shadow cast by personal trauma, violence and loss on people’s lives.

Ek is gebore by kerslig, op ’n plaas, Vaalhoek, naby Keimoes en Kakamas! Op ’n jong ouerdom begin ek onder andere Rooi Jan en Swart Luiperd lees. Ek begin ook stories vertel. Ek lees graag en skryf graag. Ek het ’n onderwyser, dominee en kliniese sielkundige geword met ’n D.Litt in kliniese sielkunde en werk nog as kliniese sielkundige. Ek verwerf jaarliks ’n diploma in sielkunde. Ek is ’n wewenaar en het van Upington na Pringlebaai verhuis.

Vir my is dit belangrik dat verhale dadelik vrae moet laat ontstaan soos, “Wat gebeur volgende?”en eindig met onverwagse bevredigende gebeure. In my eie stories pas ek hierdie metode toe.

Van die stories het heelwat humor in en is vir oud en jonk. Genotvolle verhale wat jy nie kan mis nie. Sommige verhale is kort en lekker leesstof vir mense wat haastig is en sommige langer vir bedtyd. Elke verhaal is uitstekende vermaak en laat mens na die ligter kant van die lewe kyk.

Daar’s ’n muis wat kan praat, ’n Ou wat dink hy kan ’n rivier in vloed klop, ’n man wat alles kan regmaak, behalwe ’n kar se ratte wat agtertoe inspring in plaas van vorentoe, ’n lekker polisiestorie, ’n vroutjie wat mediese verteenwoordiger speel, liefde en hartseer, ’n geheimsinnige vrou met asemrowende lippe en nog sulke stories.

Lees en geniet hulle!

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.

In the small rural town of Qonda, South Africa, the power and water supplies are unreliable, property prices are down, and citizens are slowly suffocating in the acrid smoke from the municipal dump. Recently retired English teacher Megan Merton has lived here all her life, most of it at No. 8 Serpent Crescent. So who better than this self-styled pillar of society to shine a spotlight on the decline and dysfunction, not to mention the dubious activities, past and present, of many of her neighbours.

Nefarious deeds and bad behaviour deserve harsh treatment and appropriate retribution, if not consignment to one of Dante’s fiendish nine circles of hell. At least that’s what Megan believes – in fact she’s been taking matters into her own hands, unnoticed, for years. And now she has decided to write it all down, to shake all of the skeletons loose, and rejoice in the inventive punishments she devised and personally delivered to the wicked.

Then her neighbour Elizabeth Cardew, a lecturer in Classical Studies, suffers a stroke and Megan is entrusted with the keys to No. 9. While Elizabeth begins a long recovery at the local care facility, Whispering Pines, Megan relishes the chance to snoop. Curious as to ‘what a stroke victim looks like’, she decides to visit and see for herself. A bond develops between the two women – one a cold and calculating sociopath, the other a courageous and lonely academic – something that takes both of them by surprise.

Vivian de Klerk’s sharp observations and brilliantly acerbic satirical wit make this multi-layered novel at once horrifying, shocking and poignant – and very, very funny.

An evocative and finely detailed novel of ordinary life under apartheid that follows the lives of a family, particularly the women of various generations, who are named Dikeledi, who together form the backbone of the story.

Dikeledi captures, carefully and movingly, the essence of the turbulent days in which it is set. The focus on family drama within an incredibly difficult social situation, the small daily struggles rather than the huge challenges that conventionally make for ‘good’ archival footage, are what sets the novel apart from other literature that deals with the period.

From South Africa to Iceland, rural Belgium and the Alps, the stories in Mad Honey radiate out to encompass the globe.

In Johannesburg a couple raise their son in leafy suburbia, while their cleaner’s child must face the inequities of their country head on.

Amid Reykjavik’s arctic landscape, a woman takes mad honey with the man who has left her for another, and spends a chilling night with a violent Russian and his companion.

And in New England two lovers face the cruelty of a host whose humanity has left him, while a mother takes pity on a street child she finds on a platform at Park Station.

Crowning this collection is a story cycle featuring a young Namibian and his Japanese friend, who spend a claustrophobic night in a chateau with a dark pool of glimmering eels – this after being pulled into a tragedy on the ski slopes of Italy.

Following on from his multi award-winning first collection, published in English as The Alphabet of Birds, SJ Naudé’s second collection of short stories disturbs, surprises and enthrals.

In Dobsonville, a few hours before the party of the year, a guy shares a joint with his friend Ari. Ari is always right. Ari is also imaginary. And winged. In a few hours, while Ari plays both angel and demon on his shoulder, our man will end up joyriding to a brothel in a snatched tourist rental car. But the police – and the burly tourists – are in pursuit.

At some point, when you’re a hunted man and there’s a gun tucked in the waistband of your pants, things come to a head. Will he be okay? Ask Ari. Ari never lies.

Prepare for a party night that courses from Soweto to the Joburg cbd as Tshidiso Moletsane’s explosive novel serves shots of sex, drugs and anxiety while tearing into life, death, race and politics, with consequences only Ari could have seen coming.

Odette is a script writer for a popular TV soap opera. When she moves to the small Free State town of Nagelaten she hopes to leave her problems – of family, fraught relationships and experiences of crime – behind in Joburg. To the dwellers of Nagelaten, Odette appears to be escaping a painful break-up in a place she knows no-one – and won’t have to share her secrets.

When Odette begins seeing the local engineer, Adriaan, also an outcast in this small town, secrets begin to surface around the murder of Adriaan’s wife. Odette’s world begins to unravel, when her ‘troubled’ daughter, Mandy, is suspected of killing the baby she was au-pairing in the UK and soon comes to live with Odette, who has a secret of her own. It isn’t until Mandy befriends a strange man named Wolfie that Odette finally begins to question the mysteries of the small town.

Odette is forced to face her mistakes of the past and the truth of a murder long since buried with the dead. The Imagined Child is a carefully plotted ‘whodunit’ that combines Jo-Anne’s trademark lyrical style with tight suspense and will keep you guessing until the last page.

Koos se nuutste roman soos net hy dit kan skryf, maar ook meer.

Dit is ‘n donker komedie gebore uit die wanhoop en isolasie van die afgelope twee jaar se grendeltyd.

Nobel Laureate and two-time Booker prize-winning author of Disgrace and The Life and Times of Michael K, J. M. Coetzee tells the remarkable story of a nation gripped in brutal apartheid in his Sunday Express Book of the Year award-winner Age of Iron. In Cape Town, South Africa, an elderly classics professor writes a letter to her distant daughter, recounting the strange and disturbing events of her dying days. She has been opposed to the lies and the brutality of apartheid all her life, but now she finds herself coming face to face with its true horrors: the hounding by the police of her servant's son, the burning of a nearby black township, the murder by security forces of a teenage activist who seeks refuge in her house. Through it all, her only companion, the only person to whom she can confess her mounting anger and despair, is a homeless man who one day appears on her doorstep. In Age of Iron, J. M. Coetzee brings his searing insight and masterful control of language to bear on one of the darkest episodes of our times. 'Quite simply a magnificent and unforgettable work' Daily Telegraph 'A superbly realized novel whose truth cuts to the bone' The New York Times 'A remarkable work by a brilliant writer' Wall Street Journal South African author J. M. Coetzee was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003 and was the first author to win the Booker Prize twice for his novels Disgrace and The Life and Times of Michael K. His novel, Foe, an exquisite reinvention of the story of Robinson Crusoe is also available in Penguin paperback.

Die spook in sy huis kry alleenloper Paul nie verdryf nie, al probeer hy hoe hard om met ingewikkelde resepte sy dae om te bak. Sy lewe verander onomkeerbaar wanneer hy by ’n moord ingesleep word. Nou is sy lewe ook ’n koerantopskrif, nes dié wat hy elke nag bekook vir die Shrien Dewanisaak by die nuuskantoor waar hy werk.

Die skaduwêreld van sado-masochisme kom tydens die Dewaniondersoek aan die lig: ’n wêreld goed bekend aan Div. Fisieke pyn is hoe hy vergeet van sy afgetakelde pa en sy junkie-broer. Wanneer die gedaante van die vermoorde Anni Dewani lewensgroot aan Div verskyn, besef hy dat dít wat by hom spook nie slegs metafories is nie.

Wat jaag ons, en wat maak ons vry? In ’n Spook in die huis, François Loots se sewende roman, word die kompleksiteite rondom ontvlugting en verlossing op boeiende en verrassende wyse verken.

Barry James is detained in a quarantine facility in the blistering heat of the Great Karoo. Here he exists in two worlds: the discordant and unforgiving reality of his incarceration and the lyrical, snowy landscapes of his dreams.

He has cut all ties with his previous life, his health is failing, and he has given up all hope. All he has to cling to are the meanderings of his restless mind, the daily round of pills and the journals he reluctantly keeps as testimony to a life once lived. And then there’s an opportunity to escape.

But to escape what? And where to? Can there be a life to go back to? Is there still a world out there in the barren wasteland beyond the fence?

A single moment can change a life forever… A van full of men armed with AK47s is stopped by two policemen while driving through Bethlehem in the Free State. They open fire on the policemen and, from that moment, their lives are irrevocably changed. So to for Fusi Mofokeng, resident of Bethlehem, who was not at the scene of the crime but was the brother-in-law of one of the perpetrators. He is accused of being an accomplice and tried, sentenced and jailed.

Nineteen years later, in 2011, Fusi is released into a world that has changed beyond recognition, a world in which his mother, father and brother have all died. Throughout his incarceration he fought for his release, appearing before the TRC, and schooling himself in law. Even today, he seeks a presidential pardon.

It is to this life that award-winning author Jonny Steinberg turns his attention in One Day in Bethlehem. In examining the life and struggle of Fusi Mofokeng, Steinberg shines a searing light on the burden of the 'everyman' in his quest for justice. In doing so, he also captures a country as it violently sheds the skin of the past to emerge, blinking, into the modern era.

South Africa – 1976 to 1994. A time of turbulence as the struggle against apartheid reaches its zenith, pushing South Africa to the brink.

But for a one small boy in the leafy northern suburbs of Johannesburg ... his beloved housekeeper is serving fish fingers for lunch. This is the tale of Hamish Charles Sutherland Fraser – chorister, horse rider, schoolboy actor and, in his dreams, 1st XV rugby star and young ladies’ delight. A boy who loves climbing trees in the spring and a girl named Reggie.

An odd child growing up in a conflicted, scary, beautiful society. A young South African who hasn’t learnt the rules.

Eva Mazza's latest page turner is evocative of the Netflix hit series Emily in Paris. 

When 24-year old Christine realises that unless she escapes her abusive husband Louis, their marriage vow "till death do we part " might just become her reality. On securing a job as a hair stylist at a salon in an exclusive hotel in Amsterdam, Christine's eyes are opened as she discovers a world of glamour and magical experiences.

And when she meets bad boy Giovanni she encounters unexpected sexual liberation.

Dit was die vyftiende jaar van ekonokrasie. Vyftien jaar nadat ons ons demokrasie vir die Korporasie verruil het. Die politiek is geprivatiseer. Nes ons polisiediens en hospitale, dekades vroeër. Danksy tegnologie, die stygende reënval, die veranderende klimaat, kon die land aan derduisende yskoue, dankbare Amerikaners en Kanadese blyplek bied. Vir beide die aankomelinge én die gevestigde inwoners het voorspoed en ’n beter lewe aangebreek.

So het ons geglo, of so is aan ons vertel. Maar nou leer ek ’n nuwe taal. Die taal van onthou. En dit maak my gevaarlik.

Wanneer ’n mediese dokter die aandag van die Sentinels trek, moet hy deur ’n verwoeste landskap vlug. In ’n wêreld waar ’n skynson lig verskaf, raak hy ’n pion in ’n komplot waarvan hy onbewus is. Selfs die verdwyning van sy kind tydens die chaos en die kosopstande voor die Wending kon hom nie hierop voorberei nie.

In ’n land sonder voëls is ’n verdoemende ondersoek na die impak van ’n totalitêre bestel en een man se besinning oor sterflikheid en dít wat ons mense maak.

’n Foonoproep uit Pollsmoor laat ’n navorser se lewe kantel. Só na aan hom was die vrou wat bel dat hy algaande die biblioteek, waar hy die eerste skepe aan die Kaap bestudeer, vir dié tronk se waglokaal verruil.

Gou kom hy agter dat dié plek is nie altyd so strak soos sy tralies nie: daar is ’n eertydse skipper wat hier vetkoek verkoop; ’n vrouebewaarder met jazz in haar stem; selfs karaoke-aande in die skaduwee van die lemmetjiesdraad.

Dieper en dieper word hy ingetrek by die lewens van diegene wat wag om ín- of uítgelaat te word. Net toe hy dink hy kan met sekerheid sê wie aan watter kant van die hoë mure staan, moet hy begryp dat verdriet bodemloos is.

In Theo Kemp se Strafjaart vervloei die strominge van ’n lewe met dié van die Suid-Afrikaanse werklikheid, waar hoop en wanhoop ’n maalkolk kan raak.

Much-maligned blogger Jacob Lynch, aka Brodie Lomax, has been called many things: Professional douchebag, The king of fratire, Tabloid Maverick, Mr Misogyny, Revenge porn Romeo, That sex-tape guy and Assholepreneur. And now he can add 'Multi-millionaire' to that list. With the renewal of his reality TV show as well as his eight-figure book deal, life is good for New York's most notorious blogger.

But he's suffering from a serious bout of writer's block, and the distractions of endless parties, drugs and meaningless sex are not helping. Trapped within his life of excess, he is teetering on the edge, the next stop: rehab. So Jacob flees the city for an isolated hunting lodge in Alaska where he can focus on getting his manuscript done, once and for all. When the mysterious beautiful Alicia unexpectedly emerges from the icy landscape, he knows he shouldn't invite her in, but pretty young things have always been his greatest weakness.

The next day Jacob wakes up chained to a bed, and that's when things take a turn for the terrifying.

’n Verhaal oor sterk vroue, bendegeweld en aanvaarding.

Niemand spreek haar as Nicola de Wee aan nie. Vir Blackie, die kollega in wie se plek sy telkens bevorder word, is sy “ounooi”; vir Peters, wat onredbaar beenaf op haar is, is sy “kaptein”; haar priestervriendin Sally noem haar “Nic”. Dis net die Khayelitsha-stasiebevelvoerder vir wie sy “kaptein De Wee” heet.

Die nag toe hulle na ’n brandende voertuig uitgeroep word, kon kaptein De Wee nie droom dat dit Thandi se motor is nie, dat sy later haar grusaam verminkte lyk sou moes uitken, en watter verreikende uitwerking die moord op haar vriendekring sou hê nie. Allermins dat sy uiteindelik die ondersoek na die moord sou moes lei.

Maar om die agt moordenaars op te spoor en hul motief te ontrafel, is nie die enigste uitdaging waarvoor Nicci in hierdie ongewoon verweefde misdaadroman taan nie. Sy het self ’n geheim wat sy slim verdoesel. Tot die aand dat sy en Blackie en Peters ’n potjie maak.

Through young Mai’s eyes, life is enchanting and full of beauty. She dances on her grandfather’s feet while he talks of freedom. But the world is hard and her mother is struggling. When Rashid arrives, he casts a deep shadow over their lives. Nothing is beyond her new stepfather.

They are desperate to escape from him, and their world becomes a constant battle for survival – one of fleeing, multiple identities, abduction and upheaval. Mai’s eyes not only witness the story of her mother, but also the poignant stories of the many women she encounters across different countries. Finally, Mai learns that, when freedom comes, it comes at a bitter price.

From Mexico to Scotland to London to North Africa, the West Indies and back again, Glowfly Dance is a powerful and haunting story of migration, resilience and, ultimately, hope.

Durban lawyer Teddy Dickerson has run out of ideas. Cynical, single and middle-aged, he’s the very last of his family to still call South Africa home.

When his formidable Aunt Val dies, she leaves him an unusual bequest: her task for Teddy is to post letters to eight of her friends around the world, a job that will take him on a journey into new and unexpected territory. When the replies start flowing in – quirky, unexpected and often hilarious missives from India, Egypt, England, Canada and beyond – Teddy realises there was more to his tough aunt than he’d thought.

Will he take on Aunt Val’s role as confidant and comforter of the lost? Confidant and comforter? Teddy?!

One thing’s for certain: Aunt Val is laughing in her grave.

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.