A group of women at a specific period in the history of Southern Africa find their family life under the pressures of capitalist modernity and apartheid.

These ordinary, 'private' stories are anchored to the more powerful public stories of Penelope of ancient Greek mythology, who waited eighteen years while her husband Odysseus was away, and Winnie Mandela who waited for twenty-seven years.

The life story of Winnie Mandela remains one of the great unfolding dramas of our times; a tale of triumphs and tragedies that is only just beginning to be examined.

Sy’s ʼn boeremeisie, hy ʼn Jood. ʼn Boerejood, ja, maar nogtans ʼn Jood. Vir hulle liefde is daar geen toekoms as hulle dit nie self skep nie.

Terwyl hulle jonk is, dink hulle nie aan die toekoms nie, leef hulle vir die nou, glo hulle die verskille kan oorkom word. En Izak Katz, weet Elizabeth, maak altyd ʼn plan. Altyd.

Hy, met sy lag, sy terg, die sagtheid in sy oë. Die paadjie wat aan hulle toebedeel is, is ongelyk. Soos die middelmannetjie in die drif. Hulle weet van mekaar vermy, van voorgee sodat niemand iets vermoed nie. Van wag. En van liefhê … Totdat Elizabeth gedwing word om ʼn doodsbelofte te maak. En sy weet, sy wéét, hierdie keer is dit verby, nie eers Izak sal nou meer raad hê nie.

The second verse of any song has to be more killer than the first. Always. The rhythm has to slap. The lyrics must be on point. The feeling intense. And the impact mad-definitive. It’s just the way it is. In the same way, if you do well once in life, then you always have to be better from that point onwards. No doubt.

East London, aka Slummies, circa 1998. Bokang Damane is a dreamer and an outsider with mad problems. Things only get worse when everyone thinks he wants to off himself just because he wrote an essay on suicide. Really? Talk about d.r.a.m.a.

Life at the moment is just a sorry son-of-a-checklist of insolvable problems. Problem #1: Not black enough for the black kids and too black for the white kids. Yep, that’s what happens when you attend a mad-pompous all boys’ college and live in the burbs. Problem #2: Family finances are a joke – they can’t even afford Bokang’s initiation. Now he can’t get props like any decent Xhosa man. Problem #3: An alcoholic, gambling attorney for a father who expects the world to bend to his will.

What’s a man gotta do? Apart from freaking the hell out?

Bokang just wants to rap, sketch and be left alone. Everyone keeps yacking on about Bokang reaching his true potential but everyone keeps getting in the way.

So what happens?

Boy meets girl. It wouldn’t be much of a story otherwise.

Een stad. Vyf mense. Wraak se bloedspoor.

DIE SLAGOFFER EN SY SUSTER
Freya Rust glo sy weet alles van haar tweelingbroer Ben, maar wanneer hy vermoor word, besef sy sy lewe was vol geheime. Sy is vasberade om sy dood te wreek, al kos dit wat.

DIE ONDERWYSER
Rugby-afrigter meneer Oktober het sy hande vol met sy wilde tienerdogter, maar dit is sý duister verlede wat by hom spook wanneer hy snags in Pretoria met ’n gelaaide vuurwapen ronddwaal.

DIE DWELMHANDELAAR
Slick se wrede mentorskap by Mama Afrika leer hom moord en mag loop hand aan hand. Hy regeer sy dwelmkoninkryk met ’n ystervuis.

DIE SPREUDER
Benjamin Rust se moordsaak land op inspekteur Nolwazi Mngadi se lessenaar. In die korrupte slangnes van ’n polisiestasie in Pretoria begin sy met haar ondersoek.

Hoekom is Ben dood? Wie het hom vermoor? En wat is vergelding se prys? Wrok breek die misdaadroman se reëls en werp lig op die morsige gevolge van verdriet, woede en wraak.

Innocent and inexperienced Abigail (Abby), a sheer teetotaller, has a long list of the attributes of the man she wants to fall in love with. She stumbles upon a rich and educated man who meets all the features on her list. However, this makes her irrational and impetuous, and she’s about to make the biggest mistake of her life.

As ’n Duitse wesie kom Gretl ná die Tweede Wêreldoorlog Suid-Afrika toe. Vir haar oorlewing, het Jakób Kowalski besluit. Maar net Jakób ken haar groot geheim, kan dalk die vuur in haar drome verstaan. En help heelmaak.

Twenty-nine-year-old Themba is a nihilistic, depressed, and suicidal artist whose dream is to become a successful novelist. With all the failure and suffering he's experiencing, it seems as though his life is stuck without any purpose and meaning. Everything seems to be going well for his friends, but not for him. His brother and father hate him for his ambitious but dead dream. Worse, Themba still lives in poverty with his parents in an abandoned house.

However, Themba has one passionate reader of his books, a woman called Yana. She's weird and has no friends, and volunteers at a local orphanage. Yana is the good Samaritan of the neighbourhood, cheerful and happy, but few people seem to like her. Themba begins to question what makes Yana so odd but yet so comfortable with her life even though she doesn't have much to be happy about. His curiosity leads him closer to her, and his life changes forever.

13 twisted tales of music, magick, mayhem & murder.

Some torn from headlines in sunny South Africa where, for many, these are part of everyday life.

♠

Shop for shrunken heads in a village that time forgot.

Witness an ancient ritual passed down from the Aztecs through Jack the Ripper to modern-day London.

Savour the sweet taste of revenge in a French restaurant.

Sit in on the Grim Reaper’s disciplinary hearing.

And experience life on the streets in 1980s Hillbrow as two teenagers struggle to survive a violent rollercoaster ride through Johannesburg’s underground club scene.

♠

John West has won awards and even small amounts of money for his scribblings over the years. One of his stories was recently longlisted in the top 200 entries out of 5 000 submitted to the international Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

His first novel – Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick – is available online.

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.

She is Half-Away Woman. Her name is her destiny: half woman, half sea creature. Down with the octopus she dives. She swims out beyond the waves with the sea lions and the orcas. She rolls with the sea otters in the kelp. She rests in the intertidal – that place which is half sea, half land. When the winter storms break, she shelters on the reefs, deep below the thrashing waves, with the rockfish and the wolf eel. She sees all in the sea. She feels all.

The sea has always been in Claire Lutrísque’s blood. Descended from Canada’s native Haida people, she is hurled by tragedy on a southward path, to the warm waters of Mozambique, where she joins the fight to safeguard the region’s coral reefs. Navy diver Klaas Afrikaner first swam into these same waters on a covert military mission. Seven years later, he is languishing as a divemaster in the sleepy coastal town of Tofo. But the shark-fin trade is threatening the only thing that keeps him going. So he too must rise to his calling.

A shared love of the ocean and a deep desire to protect it brings these kindred spirits together.

Steeped in the myths of the sea, Lynton Francois Burger’s novel is as lyrical as it is exhilarating. Part ecological thriller, part tender love story, She Down There is a timely song to the world’s oceans and the creatures living in them.

Solitaire, Woestynroos, Droomland en Wilde klawer is ’n vierluik oor vier vroue wat deelgeneem het aan ’n Boer soek ’n vrou-kompetisie en hulle wedervaringe daarna. Wilde klawer is die vierde boek in die reeks en gaan oor McKenna Wilde wat ’n spesiale gawe het om deur aanraking te “sien”. Vir hierdie ekstrovert wat verkies om eerder op die ligter sy van die lewe te fokus, is dit eerder ’n vloek as ’n seen. ’n Brief van ’n onbekende vrou lei haar terug na haar geboorteland, Noord-Ierland. Hier word sy gekonfronteer met haar ma se donker verlede en die Wildes se betrokkenheid by die IRL (Ierse Republikeinse Weermag) se bloedige stryd teen Britse oorheersing. Maar dit is ook ’n reis na selfontdekking. McKenna leer sy kan nie van haarself en haar herkoms vlug nie. In haar soeke na selfaanvaarding word dit vir haar duidelik ’n vrou moet eers ’n man met haar hart kan vertrou voor sy hom met haar lyf vertrou. McKenna wat nog altyd weggeskram het van blywende verhoudings sien oplaas in dat intimiteit sonder liefde bloot ’n gejaag na wind is. In Portballintrae, ’n klein hawedorpie aan die Ierse Noordkus kruis haar pad met verskeie mense s’n wat haar nie noodwendig almal goedgesind is nie. Die Donovan-broers wat ’n pub in Bushmills besit. Die Engelsman James Fellowes wat navorsing oor the Troubles doen en die Suid-Afrikaner Tim Els. Tim Els,’n tandarts wat vir twee jaar in Noord-Ierland werk, is vasgevang in sy eie ongelukkige verlede. McKenna besef sy kan haar gawe gebruik om hom te help. Maar dit is moeilik om teen ’n spook vir ’n man se hart te baklei. Boonop is dit vir McKenna ’n vreesaanjaende gedagte dat sy haar leefruimte permanent met ’n man moet deel.

Africa, 1906: A young Australian adventurer is condemned to death.

Sydney, the present: journalist Nick Eatwell has just lost his job, but his day is brightened when a fellow reporter, South African Susan Vidler, comes into his life looking for his help with a story.

Susan is chasing information about Nick's great-great uncle, Cyril Blake, who fought in the Anglo-Boer War and later joined the struggle for independence across the border in the German colony of South West Africa, now Namibia. A long-lost manuscript proves Nick's forebear was a somewhat reluctant hero. Soldier, deserter, cattle rustler and freedom fighter, Blake was helping the lost cause before the Kaiser's forces ordered his assassination.

In Germany, historian Anja Berghoff is researching the origins of the famed desert horses of Namibia. She's also interested in Blake and an Irish-German firebrand and spy, Claire Martin, with whom Blake had an affair. Nick and Anja head to Africa on the trail of a legend, but someone else is delving into the past, looking for clues to the secret location of a missing horde of gold that's worth killing for.

Spanning two centuries, Ghosts of the Past is based on a true story.

When Laurence Waters arrives at his rural hospital posting, Frank, a fellow doctor there, is instantly suspicious. Laurence is everything Frank is not – young, optimistic and full of new schemes. The two become uneasy friends, while the rest of the staff in the deserted hospital view Laurence with a mixture of awe and mistrust.

The town beyond the hospital is also coping with new arrivals, and the return of old faces. The Brigadier – a self-fashioned dictator from apartheid days – is rumoured to still be alive. And down at Mama’s Place, a group of soldiers has moved in with their malign commandant, a man Frank has met before and is keen to avoid. Laurence wants to help – but in a world where the past is demanding restitution from the present, his ill-starred idealism cannot last.

In gleaming prose Damon Galgut has created a literary thriller out of an unlikely friendship. The Good Doctor is a gripping novelistic high-wire act

’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.

When Lily Westwood dies of cancer, her family are plunged into grief and despair. However, it is not only the loss of Lily which causes their desolation - it’s honouring her dying wish that her husband, William, and twin sister, Frith, leave the UK to raise her daughter, Plum, in Lily’s beloved South Africa. Together, William, Frith and Plum must fulfil Lily’s last wish and confront the challenges this presents to each of them.

William, broken and remorseful, buys North Wind Manor, a decaying Edwardian house, and buries his misery in trying to restore the property to its former glory. As the three become immersed in this project, it is clear that William’s obsession with hiding the rot and decay of the mansion mirror his desperation to conceal the misdeeds and wretchedness of his past.

Lily’s identical twin sister, Frith, resents her loss of freedom as she finds herself caring for William and Plum in a damp, gloomy house and a city alien to her. Increasingly she frets over the impact this will have on her spirit and career as an artist. With enormous courage, Frith tries to carve out an identity for herself as her future becomes increasingly tenuous.

Eleven-year old Plum, sensitive, bright, and imaginative falls in love with North Wind Manor at first sight. Upon finding a century-old diary written by the manor’s former occupant, Plum becomes enthralled by the intrigue and history of her new home, so much so, that it consumes her every waking thought until she begins to believe the diary’s author is a spirit inhabiting the manor.

This compelling story interweaves between past and present to explore the twisted dynamics of a family brought closer by sorrow, regret, mortality, love – and an understanding that the truth is not always simple.

Back in South Africa after working with the FBI, Creed is haunted by his past mistakes, including the death of his fiancée. When a young woman is murdered and dismembered in her Johannesburg apartment, Creed’s long-time friend and head of the SAPS’ Investigative Psychological Unit, Major Eli Grey, enlists his help in investigating the murder – an attempt to save the self-destructing Creed from himself. But not all the Unit’s members welcome his involvement, and there are those intent on exposing his secrets while the murder is being solved.

The young woman’s community are convinced she was the victim of a witch called Nomtakhati, but Creed’s hunch points to an angry ex-boyfriend. Who, or what, is really behind the murder? Could it be Nomtakhati, who believes Nick Creed is uSatane?

In the Midst of Wolves is a dark psychological thriller about metaphorical demons from the past and the living monsters who target the innocent.

We all know our final destination but we have no idea what will cross our path as we journey there.

It’s 2008 and the height of Zimbabwe’s economic demise. A group of passengers is huddled in a Toyota Quantum about to embark on a treacherous expedition to the City of Gold. Amongst them is Gugulethu, who is hoping to be reconciled with her mother; Dumisani, an ambitious young man who believes he will strike it rich, Chamunorwa and Chenai, twins running from their troubled past; and Portia and Nkosi, a mother and son desperate to be reunited with a husband and father they see once a year.

They have paid a high price for the dangerous passage to what they believe is a better life; an escape from the vicious vagaries of their present life in Bulawayo. In their minds, the streets of Johannesburg are paved with gold but they will have to dig deep to get close to any gold, dirtying themselves in the process.

Told with brave honesty and bold description, the stories of the individual immigrants are simultaneously heart-breaking and heart-warming.

Keira en die mense van Walkers Village leer ons dat elke mens 'n kans het om oor te begin. Dat elke mens die reg het om oor te begin.

Vir die inwoners van Walkers Village is Keira se manier van dinge doen aanvanklik baie vreemd en ongehoord. Maar Keira verstaan dat regte mense regte probleme het. En ook dat regte mense soms so 'n bietjie hulp nodig het om die regte probleme op te los. Al klink dit aanvanklik vreemd en ongehoord. Saam met Keira leer ons om te verstaan dat die lewe nie altyd regverdig is nie. Dat goeie mense se paaie soms met donker siele se paaie kruis. Dat ons nie altyd kan kies wie ons pad kruis nie, maar dat ons wel kan kies hoe ons daai pad van ons stap.

Want hoe jy jou pad stap, is wat saak maak. Nie hoe jy jou storie vertel nie.

When Karl wakes up in a dilapidated house on the outskirts of a South African mining town, he does not know who or where he is, but it’s clear that the townsfolk know him.

Next door lives a ten-year-old boy, Henry. Henry’s father is a violent drug-dealer, his mother helpless in protecting them against him. A gap in the hedge between the two houses allows Henry to slip into Karl’s yard, and Karl and Henry strike up a gentle friendship as glimpses of Karl’s troubled past and his time in the army emerge.

When a drug deal goes wrong, Henry’s mother is killed. His father unceremoniously dumps her body in a disused mineshaft, but a murder investigation ensues after the body is discovered. All is not as it seems, however, and in a powerful climax the real connection between Henry and Karl is revealed.

Wat hét met Anna gebeur die oomblik ná sy die sneller getrek het? Ná sy haar stiefpa wat haar soveel jare lank fisies en emosioneel verrinneweer het, vroeg een oggend in Bloemfontein in die oë gekyk, en toe geskiet het?

Agt jaar ná die verskyning van Dis ek, Anna neem Anchien Troskie aldus Elbie Lötter weer haar pen op, en skryf die opvolg. Hoe vra ’n mens vergifnis, en wanneer mag jy wraak neem? Dit is die vrae waarmee Anna – en ook die skrywer – worstel . . .

’n Skreiend eerlike roman oor Anna Bruwer se lewe ná die moord op haar stiefpa – ’n boek gevul met deernis, en eindelik ook hoop.

Shay, a seemingly shy and innocent journalism student, is sent to a female prison to cover a story on an inmate, but falls in love instead. Two months later, Sippy, Shay’s love interest, is out of prison and they move in together.

On the outside, Sippy is the haunted one in the relationship, but as their love story unfolds, it turns out that Shay has her own secrets.

This immersive and interesting story – written with no small amount of flair and intensity – is sexually charged and filled with moments of lacerating violence, both emotional and physical. At heart, it is the story of a woman’s inability to let go of that which both nourishes and destroys her.

Kassie Kasselman is kriewelrig. Sy lewe lank poeliesman gewees, maar wat hy nóú alles oor die SAPD lees . . . Hy't juis 'n ander werksaanbod. En dan kom hy teen die grieseligste booswig nóg te staan, en moet blitsig slim skuiwe bedink om die Pion van die bord af te vee. Spioenasie, wapenhandelkorrupsie en 'n moordenaar uit jou nagmerries . . .

Connected by more than their exquisite prose, Nick Mulgrew’s new stories delve into a world of killer eagles, tattoo removal parlours, hardcore punk guitarists-cum-auditors, turtle sanctuaries, plane crashes, amateur pornographers and biltong-makers – a world concurrently too strange and too familiar for comfort. A collection of startling imagination and sympathy – set primarily in South Africa’s least fashionable cities and suburbs – these stories maintain a precarious balance between rich comedy and despair throughout their explorations of grief, spectacle, sex, nostalgia, and the lives of animals, both human and not. With audaciousness met by trademark spiritual undercurrents and poetic flourish, The First Law of Sadness is confirmation of Mulgrew’s status as one of South Africa’s best contemporary exponents of short fiction.

Magaya is the unemployed graduate who lost his parents due to crime and was left with nothing else apart from a four roomed house. The community of Siyabusa adopted him. To thank them he was involved in the fight against crime and drug abuse which saw him recruited full time by crime fighting agencies. Magaya met a love of his life Nozuko, who was a shareholder and Director of Marembera store. The two tired the knot and due to family commitment decided to promote Sbongile, their friend to run the fort on their behalf who stole all the investment and savings.

Impi was born during the Mozambican civl war and was abducted to join renamo as a child soldier. He also participated forcefully in all mutilation and killing activities.