In the title story Away From the Dead we meet Isaac Witbooi, a farm worker, who has to come to grips with losing everything including the graves of his entire deceased family. In After Spring a couple takes a holiday but we're drawn into the issue of identity: Even if they hadn't heard us speaking English earlier, they would have known our foreignness simply by sight. It is visible to them in our facial features, the way we wear our clothes, our hair. The fact that we are third and fifth generation South Africans respectively matters little to them. Making Challah is a touching picture of an ageing woman, and it uses the baking of challah as a wonderful metaphor of passing time. Ridwaan and Chadley are On the Train, a seemingly routine journey but somehow a dog has been acquired and it's been Chadley's first time to kill. Find out how it felt to be Andries Tatane who, on 13 April 2012, died during a service delivery protest in Ficksburg, South Africa. In the Narrative of Emily Louw, a true story, a young woman regrets not having given something to old Emily after listening to her sad story: At the second, a policeman had looked at the blanketed child, her worn face and bleeding feet and he had smirked, as though to indicate that her husband had left by choice and couldn't be blamed for his departure. Next is a thoughtful reflection on being called Muzungu when a white South African woman visits Uganda. From Dark is a rallying call to remember that illegal mining causes the deaths of hundreds every year. Zama-zamas (Zulu for 'chancers') live underground for months at a time, dying in police raids, fires, cave-ins and poor conditions. A young couple's outing goes horribly wrong in At the Seaside. Grandmother's great big wicker picnic basket, which was supposed to be a treat, takes the blame. An 'informal settlement' of zinc shacks on the flatlands sets the scene in Allotment. Warda Meintjes and her husband struggle to survive. A great stadium for the World Cup is being built but Warda's unborn child stops moving. The homeless were being rounded up by police, placed in trucks, driven out into the countryside and dumped. 'Thank God we're spared that,' one woman said. 'Don't fool yourself,' another replied. 'That is us. It has already happened to us.' In The Shark Mia's very sense of being gets overtaken by events. A dark story leading on to Development, darker still, but thought-provoking, and about what it is to be human. The Wall is almost surreal and deals with growing old on the street. Alletjie lives with her husband Jan Bakker and Solly, her disabled brother, next to an old mine built by Cornish miners in the 1880s. Their circumstances are a cut above those of Warda and her husband, yet, 'living on the old goats and chickens and a disability grant was never enough', and Alletjie who 'does everything' thinks it isn't fair, 'the mine owned her this future for herself'. Resurrecting again exerts a certain surreal appeal. A father takes to his bed because of a crushed pigeon or is it a metaphor for a crushed soul in the office? His son is told to pray but is there going to be a resurrection?

Terwyl die 17-jarige Marta se pa in haar arms sterf, vra hy haar om na haar ma om te sien. Sy vertolk hierdie belofte letterlik en verlaat die skool. Marta verwerf 'n diploma in haarkappery en begin 'n haarsalon in haar tuisdorp, sodat sy haar ma kan versorg. Mettertyd kring haar dienslewering wyer uit: na die ouetehuis in Lambertsbaai en werk by die kerk. Sy en haar Ma het 'n roetine van Bybellees en bid in die aand, maar dis net nog 'n plig en hul gebede steek vas by afgerammelde rympies. Sy neem haar kort-kort voor om haar lewe beter in te rig, maar dit gebeur nie. Eendag word dit alles te veel vir haar - die dag toe haar blinde bewondering vir Deon Swanepoel haar in groot verleentheid bring.

Dit is Marta se verhaal en hoe sy uit 'n web van pligpleging, onderdrukking, skewe waardes en onmoontlike drome bevry word.

Hierdie treffende verhaal van onvervulde drome, leë werke en liefdelose pligplegings wat geen bevrediging bring nie, maar net hartseer en verwyte, wys dat alles omgedraai kan word wanneer mense tyd maak vir Jesus. Deur sy vergifnis en sy liefde te aanvaar, kan jy met dankbaarheid die toekoms tegemoet gaan.

In a place near Mozambique where no one knows the boundary, drought is changing everything.

Tens, then hundreds of people seek refuge in a forgotten outpost where a clinic is run by lonely souls of uncertain training nuns staunchly determined to serve. But the inundation soon becomes too much for them, and there is no help from outside. Within the small community of outcasts a plan takes shape that is as outrageous as it is inspired.

The illegal adventure that follows is a humanitarian act of heroic proportions, yet unsung in the greater world. And in its wake unanswered questions remain: what is it that lies just beyond our reach; why can we not take the final step towards each other?

Bundu is about the people and the animals of Africa at the height of their beauty and the depth of their despair. It is a love story and a meditation on the mystery of our powers and the limitations that we share with our brothers, the animals.

A modern classic by Nobel Laureate J. M. Coetzee, now a major motion picture starring Robert Pattinson and Johnny Depp For decades the Magistrate has run the affairs of a tiny frontier settlement, ignoring the impending war between the barbarians and the Empire whose servant he is. When interrogation experts arrive, however, he finds himself jolted into sympathy with their victims-until their barbarous treatment of prisoners of war finally pushes him into a quixotic act of rebellion, and thus into imprisonment as an enemy of the state. Waiting for the Barbarians, J. M. Coetzee's third novel, which won the James Tate Black Memorial Prize, is an allegory of the war between oppressor and oppressed. The Magistrate is not simply a man living through a crisis of conscience in an obscure place in remote times; his situation is that of all men living in unbearable complicity with regimes that elevate their own survival above justice and decency.

Two new novellas, Mirror and Appassionata, are collected here with a third, The Blue Door (Umuzi, 2006), into one volume and thematically form a novel about the question: what other lives may we be living, and what if they connect? The result is a book which is at times reminscent of Kazuo Ishiguro's The Unconsoled as it enters surreal and inexplicable worlds. In Mirror a successful Cape Town architect wakes up one morning to find the face of a black man staring back at him from his bathroom mirror. Shocked, he nevertheless begins his day, dreading the reactions of his wife, children and business partners. But no one seems to be aware of his metamorphosis. In The Blue Door an artist retreats to his studio cottage, to be greeted by a beautiful but unfamiliar woman and her daughters as if they were his family. When he returns to his real wife he cannot locate their apartment in the building where they have been living. In Appassionata an accompanist falls in love with a beautiful and brilliant soprano, but she forbids him any physical contact. Her former lover and accompanist have both recently died under suspect circumstances. But on a weekend away she, or someone else, comes to him at night.

As Zakes Mda's fifth novel opens, the seaside village of Hermanus is overrun with whale-watchers--foreign tourists determined to see whales in their natural habitat. But when the tourists have gone home, the whale caller lingers at the shoreline, wooing a whale he has named Sharisha with cries from a kelp horn. When Sharisha fails to appear for weeks on end, the whale caller frets like a jealous lover--oblivious to the fact that the town drunk, Saluni, a woman who wears a silk dress and red stiletto heels, is infatuated with him.
The two misfits eventually fall in love. But each of them is ill equipped for romance, and their relationship suggests, in the words of "The Washington Post, " that "the deeper, darker concern here is not so much the fragility of love, but the fragility of life itself when one surrenders wholly to the foolish heart."

Wie sal ooit verstaan wat in die gemoed van ‘n moeder heers as sy haar baba onder dwang aborteer. Nog meer, wie sal ooit die gevoel van die baba verstaan as sy na vyf-en-dertig jaar ontdek dat sy drie pogings tot aborsie oorleef het. En dan die finale vraag: wié is nou werklik die Skikker van Lewe en Dood?

“Vertel dit soos wat dit was, Mamma!” het Lodene se dringende stem by my gesmeek en ek was opnuut vasgevang in die gebeurtenisse van vyf-en-dertig jaar gelede. “Die waarheid sal jou vrymaak,” word daar gespreek. “Doen dit?” het ek myself afgevra terwyl ek deur elke woord in die verhaal geworstel het. Die storie is ‘n eg boeiende spanningsverhaal uit die pen van ‘n mamma wat haar baba se lewe uit die hand van God gesmeek het. Dit sal die leser meesleur met emosies van liefde, teleurstelling, pyn, en haat. Dié ware verhaal het plaasgevind in 1983, toe aborsies onwettig was.

Lonika, ‘n jong vrou, het haar hart verloor op dié van ‘n gesiene sakeman, Wilhelm.“Verlief en verlore,” sou Stephan skouerophalend, met ‘n strak gesig sê, terwyl hy hulpeloos toesien hoedat sy broer, Wilhelm, oornag verander in ‘n ongenaakbare, gevoellose, eggenoot wat die lewe van sy ongebore baba op agterbakse wyses probeer beëindig het. Lonika se lewe word ‘n marteling tussen leuens en hartelose brutaliteit. Sy vlug na veiligheid. Genoeg is genoeg! ‘n Lewe word geneem, ‘n Lewe word gegee - maar teen ‘n prys. Weereens moes Lonika op die dorsvloer van naakbare onderhandelinge staan.

When Rachel’s brother disappears under mysterious circumstances, she must come to terms with his apparent death, though there is no body. She travels to Joburg to support her sister-in-law, Maya, with the memorial – also to escape her stifling life as a wife and mother. Rachel is unsettled when Max, her ex-lover, arrives. Despite poet Sizwe’s efforts to steady her, Rachel reels from grief and longing. Then Rachel, Maya, Max and Sizwe are involved in a confrontation that will change them forever.

"A dark and terrifying novel presenting a mythical account of the development of evil through the history of Southern Africa."--Seattle Times. This ferocious new novel by one of South Africa's visionary writers is a post-colonial reimagining of the Book of Revelation--an unholy epic that reenvisions the catastrophic violence of European "civilization" as a hooded rider who spreads slaughter across the African continent--a work that is as unnerving as it is intellectually provocative.

Op die drempel van sestig, met haar jongste kind op pad uit die huis, sukkel die hoofkarakter van Die vrou met nege lewens om rus in haarself te kry. Die enigste konstante blyk haar sorg van katte te wees, wat soos ’n draad deur haar lewe loop.

Onvergenoeg met die een na die ander blyplek, haar werk, die mense naaste aan haar, en veral haarself, gaan sy op ’n soektog na betekenis en ’n doel in haar lewe. Dit lei tot lang meditasies, swem in die see, joga, psigoanalise, en sy pak selfs meer as een psigedeliese
reis aan, met verreikende gevolge.

En dan word haar soeke deur ’n gesondheidskok op die spits gedryf . . .

Secrets are stacking up like wine barrels in the heat.

And this year’s ferment? It’s definitely going sour.

Winfred and Sylvie are keeping one eye open for the menacing villager who knows too much and another on the dismal bank balance of their bookshop-café, The Novel Eatery. Their side-hustle isn’t exactly legal . . . and now someone knows their secret.

Just as the tension threatens to boil over, news breaks that a wine-themed reality TV show is coming to town. The villagers are in a froth of excitement, giving the two friends a momentary reprieve. But the cameras bring their own complications. Sylvie is convinced the
slick presenter is greasier than her freshest vetkoek, and Winnie nearly chokes on her Sauvignon Blanc when she hears that Skokiaan, the mampoer king, is suddenly bottling five-star wine.

Lifting the Lid is filled with sharp wit, layered characters, and a setting that simmers with charm and danger. In a village like Riviersvalleij, nothing stays buried forever.

Die dertienjarige Timotheus Nieuwoudt se lewe verander onherroeplik wanneer hy sy hand in ’n motorongeluk verloor. Terwyl hy probeer aanpas by sy nuwe realiteit in ’n wêreld waarin hy reeds as buitestander leef, kondig sy ouers aan dat hulle gaan skei, en Tim voel meer geïsoleerd as ooit. Dan gebeur iets onverwags: Telkens wanneer Tim bang of alleen voel, verskyn daar ’n onwaarskynlike besoeker – ’n Europese rooivos.

Dié vreemde vos help Tim om ’n veilige tussen-in plek te vind waar hy sy nuwe werklikheid kan konfronteer en leer hoe om sy komplekse emosies te navigeer.

Vreemde vos herinner ons dat elkeen, ongeag sy ouderdom, oor die nodige innerlike krag en wysheid beskik om die moeilikste van tye te oorkom en genesing te vind, ongeag wie, wat of waar jy is. Die aflegging van onskuld is deel van menswees, en kan soos ’n sikloon
alles voor die voet platvee. ’n Tydlose verhaal wat geeneen ongeraak sal laat nie.

Thandaza Nyathi was abandoned as a baby in Mamaolo, south of Polokwane, and raised by a woman she calls her grandmother. Life has never been easy for them and Thandaza’s dream is to build a better life and take care of her gogo. So she decides to move to
Johannesburg, where new opportunities await.

When Thandaza arrives in the restless City of Gold, she is confronted by rejection and empty promises. But then fate intervenes. One morning in Yeoville she meets Steven, a successful restaurateur and businessman, who seems to epitomise everything she’s ever prayed
for.

A deeply moving novel set between Joburg and Polokwane. It’s a story about love that heals, faith that endures and two hearts destined to find each other.

Klara Beyers, voormalige joernalis, bestuur deesdae ’n gastehuis en blommeplaas op Somersee naby Hermanus.

Sy is heldersiende en kan onheil in haar nek voel kriewel wanneer dit op haar drempel staan. Soos die oggend toe Dewald Rademeyer sonder ’n bespreking by die gastehuis sy opwagting maak. ’n Dag later daag ’n misterieuse Siamese kat met ’n oënskynlik verskerpte
sesde sintuig ook by die gastehuis op en enkele minute later word Dewald se lyk met ’n naaldwerkskêr in sy nek gevind.

Kolonel Mack Biesenbach van Kaapstad en kaptein Schalk Mocke is eerste op die misdaadtoneel waar hulle ’n geskokte Klara met bloed op haar hande kry. Schalk is simpatiek, maar Mack, met wie Klara se pad al voorheen gekruis het, glo nie haar weergawe nie. Om haar onskuld te bewys, begin Klara self na leidrade soek. En dít dryf Biesenbach nog verder teen die mure uit.

’n Knippie moord is humoristies, propvol kinkels, kleurryke karakters en ’n kat genaamd Judi Dench. En natuurlik ook ’n tikkie romanse!

Ná die wêreld se mees beskaafde egskeiding, bevind ’n ontnugterde Juna Ferreira haar in ’n klein dorpie sonder ’n plan vir haar toekoms.

Wanneer sy ’n unieke litteken op ’n dorpenaar se wang herken, stuur dit haar in die teenoorgestelde rigting – ver, ver die verlede in. Sy herbesoek haar grootwordjare op die Vrystaatse goudvelde; ’n tyd wat sy as sorgvry en gelukkig onthou.

Maar was dit regtig so? Hoekom onthou ander mense dit anders? En hoeveel donker geheime lê vasgevang in die hartverskeurende ruïne van die eens statige ou Limestone House?

Mei en alles daarna is ’n verhaal oor die geheue se dans tussen werklikheid en versinsel, die lewe se sirkelgang, en ons verbintenis met alles en almal wat ons voorafgegaan het.

A heart-pounding journey through the parts of Cape Town where loyalty is myth, survival is everything, and hope dwindles in the darkest moments.

The Ashes of Euphoria is a gritty novel set in the streets of Kraaifontein, Cape Town. This novel follows three complex and beautifully drawn characters: Jameel, a Media Studies graduate working at Shoprite; his cousin Zaid, a Bolt driver creating a porn website; and Stacey, an unemployed Geology graduate who performs in Zaid's videos for money.

When Zaid's website attracts a supposed investor, the trio attends what they believe is a business meeting. But the encounter turns deadly: Zaid is murdered, Stacey is kidnapped, and Jameel is forcibly recruited into the gang.

This masterfully crafted story is action-packed and balances gut-wrenching tragedy with unexpected moments of wit and humour. A stellar new voice on the South African literary scene.

Incwadi esihloko sithi Umlungu Omnyama inoveli yokuqala yalo mbhali kodwa eseyihlomule ngendondo, ikhuluma ngokukhula njengengane ensundu endaweni ebuswa abamhlophe nezimfundiso zabo. Ilandisa ngamantombazane amabili asemancane aphila ezindaweni zasesilungwini eGoli, efunda ezikoleni ezizimele zakobelungu enabangani abamhlophe. U-Ofilwe ovela ekhaya elinothile futhi okhula ephathiswe okweqanda ubekuthatha kalula konke lokhu akhule enakho kanti manje kufanele abhekane nomshophi wokukhula engenasisekelo samasiko, umhlaba aphila kuwona ubonakala ungenamongo futhi untengantenga. Ngakolunye uhlangothi sibona uFiks, oyintombazane ezithandela izinto futhi ezikhulumelayo, ungumuntu oshabashekela impumelelo.

futhi olangazelele ukufulathela imuva lakhe elinesihluku aye empilweni yasedolobheni yobukhazikhazi, kodwa le mpilo entsha uyithola inzinyana futhi ingenasihe nokwehlukile kulokho abekulindele. Okulangazelelwe yilaba besifazane abasebancane ukuthuthuka nokuthandeka, kodwa okubaluleke kunakho konke ukuthola ukwamukeleka. Ukwamukeleka, empeleni, kutholakala ngokuba udele konke okukwenza ube umuntu omnyama – osamlungu kakhulu ukuba angahlala nabamnyama, futhi omnyama kakhulu ukuba angahlala nabamhlophe

Elle and Brent Mullen have it all: two delightful children, more than enough money and a perfectly-restored Victorian home in the plush green suburbs of Cape Town. But appearances can be deceiving.

Brent’s business decisions continue to disappoint, embittered by mistrust and entitlement. Elle - a social worker by choice - is unhappy, trying (and failing) to bridge the divide between two worlds of privilege and poverty. Until she meets her next case, Ethan who, at twelve-years-old, has seen it all. Born into a family of gangsters, life through his eyes reveals a pained struggle to defy his father’s expectatations.

In a city run by gangsters, Elle, Ethan and Brent find themselves drawn into a web of betrayal, where a wicked plot twist reveals how far each will go to get what they want.

Speuradjudant Storm van der Merwe en kollega Shirien Niemandt is vroegoggend eerste op die toneel, in ’n eenslaapkamerhuis in Zwelihle digby Hermanus. Op die oog af lyk die bejaarde Gerty Jonas se afsterwe na natuurlike oorsake, maar hoekom het Kai nie by sy ma se lyk gewag nie? En hoekom het hy soos mis voor die son verdwyn?

Die lysie raaisels raak al hoe langer. Shirien ignoreer skielik haar oproepe, en kolonel Mier Ritchie kom met die storie vorendag dat Storm oneties opgetree het, en sy word summier tydelik ontslaan.

Sy besluit op ’n kort blaaskans op Jane English se wildsplaas buitekant Barrydale. Maar Jane vertel haar ’n sindikaat het net die vorige week skaars vetplantjies gestroop en sy smeek Storm om te help om die internasionale smokkelnetwerk oop te vlek. Toe sy instem, verskyn die einste Kai Jonas weer op die toneel.

1001 nagte, 1001 wonders, 1001 gevare.

Wanneer Herman Swart se tweelingsuster Herma onverwags sterf, val ’n deel van hom weg. Hy raak toenemend eensaam en onttrek in ’n wêreld van ou films. Hy sien haar in sy eie spieëlbeeld en hoor haar op ongeleë tye. ’n Bykomende traumatiese ervaring versplinter sy wêreld finaal en Herman verval in ’n diep koma. Hy bevind homself binne-in ’n avontuur, ’n nagmerrie, ’n wêreld waarin droom, fantasie, film, vervolgverhale, musiek en die gotiese ineenvleg. In hierdie vreemde, magiese realisme beweeg hy tussen plekke, ontmoet verskeie karakters en word weggelok deur die prinses, ’n meisie wat baie aan Herma herinner.

François Bloemhof het al plaaslik en wêreldwyd vir talle literêre eerstes gesorg, maar met hierdie unieke lees-luister-en-kyk-ervaring oortref hy homself. Die duisend en eerste nag het geen geduld met ou, veilige storiegrense nie.

Lester Walbrugh is from Grabouw in the Western Cape. His acclaimed short stories have been published in, among others, Short.Sharp.Stories’s Die Laughing, Short Story Day Africa’s anthologies, New Contrast and most recently, Hair: Weaving and Unpicking Stories of Identity. He has lived in the UK and Japan and is currently back in his hometown, working on his first novel.

Let It Fall Where It Will is Lester Walbrugh’s debut collection of stories. Set in the Cape and Japan, the stories showcase the stunning versatility of the author. Ranging from witty to poignant, they capture a fascinating diversity of voices and fearlessly explore contemporary topics of identity and sexuality as well as South Africa’s deeply troubled past. A few employ magic realism to great effect.

The book’s epigraph and title were inspired by Adam Small’s poem, ‘Die Here het gaskommel’.

Skye is looking for normal. She grew up different and it rankles. Home isn't normal; her mom isn't normal. Her brother, beloved as he is, isn't quite normal, either. Her marriage was kind of normal (Cam is a wealthy, handsome man who's nice enough) and now it's a dumpster fire. And look at South Africa—entirely NOT normal.

She's got PTSD and she's in mourning. She doesn't know who she is or what she wants.

She tries to anchor herself to tangible things: to her cooking, to her neighbour's children, to sex. But as she relives her past and tries to plan her future, she feels increasingly dislocated. Skye escapes when things get overwhelming, and realises almost too late that she's about to make everything worse.

What is the cost of giving a gift? What is the cost of receiving one?

At eleven years old, Julian Flint prefers to remain invisible, safe inside the architecture of adults provided by his mother, his uncle and his aunt.But when his mother, Emma, a celebrated sculptor, takes them all on a family holiday to a hotel by the sea, he meets the captivating and irreverent Clare and everything he thought he knew begins to shift – setting off a chain of events that will determine each of their fates.

From the author of The Dream House and The White Room comes Craig Higginson’s most gripping and nuanced novel to date. Moving from the lush beaches of uMhlanga Rocks to the stark midwinter wastes of Johannesburg and the rich and strange coral reefs of Mauritius, this masterfully plotted novel explores the fault lines between loyalty and betrayal, innocence and accountability, blindness and perception, entrapment and flight.

The Book of Gifts dives into the deepest and most hazardous reaches of human consciousness in order to catch the brightest fish.

Chrisanne Alberts het haar hele lewe gewerk om die bitterheid van die verlede en verwerping agter haar te los. As ’n grootwithaainavorser is sy gewoond aan die wêreld van wetenskap, maar sy dra swaar aan die verlies van haar ouers, haar broer, en die skuld wat daarmee saamgaan.

Nadat sy as voog van haar broerskind aangestel is, bevind sy haar op ’n nuwe lewenspad wat haar terugneem na die afgeleë dorp, Albatroshoek.

Hiér het sy en haar kleintydvriendinne, Reinet en Essie, saam grootgeword en trauma beleef. Wanneer ’n moordwalvis sy weg na Albatroshoek vind, bring hy verandering saam, en alles wat Chrisanne geglo het oor die balans van die see en haar eie lewe, word op die proef gestel.

Die kluisenaar van Atlaseiland, Ben Benade, lei haar op ’n reis van onthullings, en saam baklei hulle teen die uitbuiting van seebronne. Maar Chrisanne moet al hoe meer gewigtige keuses maak ... Wat gebeur met ’n vrou wat nie net haar mense verloor het nie, maar ook haar plek in die wêreld, en haar eie geloof betwyfel?

Soos ’n sluier wat stadig gelig word, ontsluit haar verhouding met die eilandkluisenaar al hoe meer van haarself. Saam soek sy en haar vriendinne oplossings vir hul kleintydtrauma terwyl die geheime van die dorp ontrafel.

En die vraag bly: Is jy die som van jou verlede en jou pyn, of is jy wie God sê jy is? Geroep, gesalf, geliefd.

The Broken River Tent is a novel that marries imagination with history.

It is about the life and times of Maqoma, the Xhosa chief who was at the forefront of fighting British colonialism in the Eastern Cape during the nineteenth century. The story is told through the eyes of a young South African, Phila, who suffers from what he calls triple ‘N’ condition – neurasthenia, narcolepsy and cultural ne plus ultra. This makes him feel far removed from events happening around him but gives him access to the analeptic memory of his people.

After being under immense mental pressure, he crosses the mental divide between the living and the dead and is visited by Maqoma. They engage in different conversations about cultural history, literature, religion, the past and contemporary South African life.