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.

Marlize Hobbs se jongste roman raak roerende temas aan. Iza is ‘n lesbiese vrou en die leser volg haar soos wat sy die herinneringe van haar kindertyd en haar daaglikse ervarings in fyn besonderhede deel. Sy probeer sin maak van die lewe en span verskeie oorlewingsmeganismes in. Sy ly onder andere aan epilepsie en ‘n geestesversteuring.

Sy vertel van haar worstelinge en onsekerhede oor kwessies soos seksualiteit en geloof, veral as jong kind en tiener, maar ook van haar persepsie van die wêreld rondom haar as volwasse vrou. Sy ontvlug na verskillende fantasieë en het voortdurend gesprekke met haar alter ego’s.

Hobbs kry dit reg om tegeleykertyd op reguit en senitiewe manier die samelewing aan te spreek en laat baie stof tot nadenke. Hierdie boek kruip regtig op aangrypende wyse in die hart van die leser en sal beslis broodnodige gesprekke aanwakker.

The second book of the Many Shallows series.

Milena, head strong yet sickly, spends her days confined to her bed. Her chronic illness has always prevented any chance of her marrying until, much to her dismay, a suitor finally takes interest. A prisoner in a pink room, it seems that Milena’s fate will be dictated by her family’s expectations. Or does an alternate future lie with Opal, a young maid from a mysterious world?

Many Shallows reimagines the lives and afterlives of Franz Kafka’s three great loves: Felice, Milena, and Dora. Rather than side notes in the famous writer’s life or vehicles for his desire, these women are reincarnated as the protagonists of their own surreal, macabre worlds.

Milena is the protagonist in The Windmill, the second book in the Many Shallows series. The Windmill explores the complex themes of body dysmorphia, sexuality and tradition.

Van 1981 tot 2014 skryf Cecile Cilliers rubrieke vir Beeld, De Kat en Sa​rie. Deur die jare het sy etlike bydraes vir verskillende bundels gemaak, maar Die ou vrou en die priester is haar eerste eie kortverhaalbundel. Verskeie klassieke temas word onder die loep geneem: dit wat in 'n huwelik ongesê bly tussen man en vrou, die verwikkelde band tussen ma en dogter, die oorweldigende blindheid van 'n eerste liefde, en bowenal die uitdagings van oud word.

Die verhale spreek tot 'n breë gehoor. Baie leesbaar, met 'n diep menslikheid wat uit die stories straal.

Alexander Strachan se Brandwaterkom is ’n dubbelloop-roman: Dit is enersyds ’n aangrypende, bloedstollende verhaal oor die lewe van een van die berugste Boereoffisiere, andersyds is dit ’n boeiende ondersoek na die verleidelike, soms selfs verraderlike manier waarop verhale van ons besit neem en ons verbeelding op loop jaag.

Met verbluffende vernuf trek Strachan albei snellers van die roman gelyk af.

'n Afgetrede navorser raak betrokke in ’n vete met die bure na hulle twee reusagtige bome op sy erf afkap. Terwyl hy probeer wraak neem (met komiese gevolge!), kom sy joernalis-dogter op die spoor van ’n geheimsinnige graffiti-kunstenaar wat Da Vinci se Vetruviaanse Man op stadsmure in Johannesburg aanbring. Die verhaal speel af in die voorstede van Johannesburg en die distopiese ruimtes van Hillbrow. ’n Slim, humoristiese roman cum speurverhaal deur ’n bekroonde dramaturg.

Ella Neser is on compulsory sick leave after her close encounter with Abel Lotz’s scalpel.

Between therapy sessions and harp lessons, she ponders over the photographs of Abel’s four victims, dead set on catching him before he kills again. When a burglary results in the death of one of the victims, Ella returns to duty to catch the culprits. But she isn’t the only one on their trail.

Has Abel Lotz returned, or is there a new killer in Dorado Park?

Daar is iets aan die stil blik van die donker oe wat nie heeltemal reg lyk nie, en die oomblik dat die hees stem oor die luidspreker kom, weet Mattheus wat dit is. "Matt," se die hondebek, "dis ek. Maak oop asseblief."

Mattheus Duiker, seun van Benjamin Duiker, eertydse eienaar van Duiker's Motors, maak die hek van die Kaapse herehuis oop vir sy minnaar Jack. Vermom soos 'n wolf dring Jack die intieme donkerte binne waar Matt wag dat sy pa doodgaan sodat sy lewe kan begin. Blinkoog oor die vooruitsigte sluip die twee jonges verby die studeerkamer waar die blinde ou man, deurdrenk van droewe verknogthede en donker vermoedens, sit en wag vir die voetval van die dood.

Eben Venter se roman is 'n diepsnydende ondersoek na die verhouding tussen pa en seun, na die ontreddering van 'n man wat bitter min uit die verlede kan neem om hom toe te rus vir 'n lewe in 'n snel veranderende bestel. Intens. Ontstellend. 'n Meesterlike ontrafeling van die dun lyn van gevoel – Venter aan die toppunt van sy vermoens.

Philida is gebaseer op historiese werklikheid en sluit wat tema en tydperk betref aan by een van Brink se vroeër romans, Houd-den-bek. Philida was ’n slavin wat tussen 1820 en 1835 op die plaas Zandvliet in die Drakenstein-distrik gewoon het. (Die plaas wat vandag bekend is as Solms Delta). Sy het ’n paar kinders gehad by Frans, die seun van Cornelis Brink, die eienaar van die plaas. Maar toe besluit Cornelis dat Frans met die dogter van ’n ryk Kaapse familie moet trou en dat dit beter is om Philida en haar kinders te verkoop.

Die roman begin waar Philida by die drostdy op Stellenbosch ’n klag teen haar baas gaan lê, ongehoorde optrede vir ’n slawevrou, optrede wat haar duur te staan kom: Philida en haar kinders word in 1833 deur Brink op ’n slaweveiling op Worcester verkoop. Die Britse regering stel kort daarna die slawe vry, maar Philida is vir vier jaar by haar nuwe eienaar, Meester de la Bat, ingeboek.

Die swaarkry en vernedering van baie jare het Philida egter gebrei en op ’n dag eien sy vir haarself vryheid toe. Saam met die Moslem-slaaf, Labyn, trek sy deur die barre Karoo na die verre Gariep – “die grote Gariep: hy is die hele land en die hele wêreld …die rivier in onse binneste. My Gariep…” dink Philida. “Hier in sy nabyte is ons almal saam.”

Philida is ’n versetsroman – maar dit is ook ’n bevrydingsroman. Dit demonstreer wat vryheid beteken, en óók wat aan die kern van baasskap lê. En alhoewel daar onthutsende tonele is, is daar ook oomblikke van teerheid en humor. En boweal, die stem van ’n meesterverteller.

’n Interessante aspek van die roman is dat Brink gebruik maak van geskiedkundige feite wat een van sy voorsate insluit.

Lucky is 'n rentboy. Die vryhede wat die nuwe demokratiese bestel het, het hy nie benut om geleertheid te bekom nie. Al is hy begaafd. Hy het ook nie die politiek aangegryp nie. Al loop hy oor van charisma. Lucky vier sy vryheid op die direkste moontlike manier, naamlik met die lyf, en aan enigeen wat kan betaal - man, vrou, oud en jonk, boer en burgemeester - bied hy die ekstases van die lyf. En op die Karoodorp Santa Gamka versmelt al die opsigtelike verdeelthede ondergronds tot 'n poel kolkende begeerte. Wit en swart, bodorp en onderdorp, boer en plaaswerker, toeris en dorpenaar, wankel almal heerlik preker saam op die donker ondergrond waar Lucky sake roer.

Meer as vyf jaar gelede het die gevaarlike David Francke uit aanhouding ontsnap en na Botswana gevlug. Vir sy ma, Klara, troos die hoop dat hy waarskynlik teen dié tyd al dood is haar waar sy in Amerika woon. Maar dan is daar ’n oproep uit Suid-Afrika wat die mat onder Klara se voete uitruk. Kan dit wees dat haar wreedaard van ’n seun ’n halfbroer het waarvan sy nie geweet het nie?

Wanneer die lyk van ’n jong vrou langs die see by Strand gevind word, begin kaptein Beyers van der Rheede en sy span onmiddellik na haar moordenaar soek. Maar toe dogtertjies begin verdwyn, is dit duidelik dat hulle nie hier met ’n groentjie te doen het nie. Is dit dieselfde moordenaar?

Op Coetzersdal word kaptein André Coghran deur die spoke van die verlede gery. Ook hý ontvang ʼn vreemde oproep. Gaan hy uiteindelik vir David vastrek?

Tussendeur op Gordonsbaai kan die jong musikant, Katherina, nie besluit hoekom die aantreklike nutsman, Hechter Stander, se attensies haar kriewelrig maak nie.

Eighty-five-year-old Alma tracks a stallion through the wild bush. A young woman leaves her corporate job to start a wine farm as her marriage stales. A mother leaves her war-torn home to seek safety for herself and her daughter and a girl begs for survival.

In a series of ten mesmerising stories, Cranswick pulls aside the covers to let us in on the lives and inner lives of women thrown out of their comfort zone. With chilling clarity and a haunting lyricism, Cranswick slows down time, zooms in close, and refuses to look away.

Die roman wat by uitstek met die naam van Van Melle geassosieer word, is Bart Nel, de opstandeling (1951), wat eers in Nederlands met Afrikaanse dialoë gepubliseer is, in 1942 volledig verafrikaans is tot En ek is nog hy en in 1951 vir ’n herdruk sy finale titel, Bart Nel, gekry het.

Die essensie van die roman is ook nie die historiese Rebellie van 1914 waaromheen die gebeure van hierdie roman gebou is nie. Bart Nel is trouens nie ’n historiese roman nie. Dis eerder ’n sielkundige of karakterroman wat handel oor ’n komplekse vereensamingsproses.

Daarmee was die werk verrassend modern in Afrikaans, soseer dat niemand dit aanvanklik besef het nie. Aan die hand van ’n nugter, maar darem nie gevoellose verteller nie word die leser binnegelei in die sel van Bart en Fransina se leef- en dinkwêreld, wat onvermydelik en dus tragies in twee vyandige selle splits en vanweë trots en onbegrip nie meer tot eenwording in staat is nie.

Hierdie gebeure van ’n genadelose afstropingsproses, waarby geliefdes en besittings in die slag bly, was in dié stadium uniek in die Afrikaanse prosa. Volgens Olivier (1981:55) wat op Spangenberg (1980) gereageer het, is daar min romans “waarin die onmag en die beperktheid van mense, en die onmoontlikheid om selfs naasbestaandes en geliefdes te begryp, op so ’n beklemmende en oortuigende manier uitgebeeld word”.

Set in the Cape, The Enumerations tells the story of Noah Groome, a seventeen year-old boy who suffers from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and his family. Kate, his mother, bears the brunt of the parenting burden as his successful but emotionally blank father, Dominic, secretly deals with the demons lurking in his past. Noah’s sister Maddie is his ally and protector, but beneath the surface she too is profoundly affected by her brother’s condition.

As the story opens, we are tipped straight into Noah’s mania: the neurotic numbering of everything from breaths to steps to the tiles on the bathroom wall. The counting – everything in fives – is his way of managing his anxiety. Specifically, it is his way of managing the controlling voice in his head.

Unsurprisingly, Noah is an object of derision at school. When he rises to the bait and breaks the arm of a bully, a chain of events is set in motion that will see Noah sent to a treatment centre and his family forced to confront the dark secrets lurking beneath their seemingly perfect veneer.

Murder is on the menu.

Detective Storm van der Merwe and Andreas Moerdyk are back in this brand-new thriller by Irna van Zyl, author of Dead in the Water.

Storm now works in Hermanus and during a lunch with her friend at Zebardines, a much-hated food blogger keels over and dies. It turns out that there were deadly mushrooms, death cups, in her food.

Finding out who killed the blogger is Storm’s first priority, but not the only matter requiring her attention: her old colleague, Andreas Moerdyk, quit his job unexpectedly and expects Storm to put him up while he makes a new start in Hermanus.

Amid frantic preparations for Fooddotcom’s prize-giving ceremony that will honour the country’s best chefs, the murderer strikes again, and again.

Storm’s time is running out.

Pretoria, 2057. Dertig jaar ná Johannesburg in ’n spookstad verander het, word die Nuwe Republiek van Suid–Afrika deur die Toekomsparty en ’n Raad van Twaalf regeer. Kel de Jong werk as ’n programmeerder in die Intelligensieburo. Sy geordende lewe word in chaos gedompel wanneer ’n militêre observasiesatelliet ’n jong kind op die verlate N1 tussen Pretoria en Johannesburg ontdek. Op dieselfde dag word In–Grid, die Intelligensieburo se sentrale kunsmatige intelligensie, in ’n aanval vernietig. In chaos wat volg, aktiveer Kel In–Grid se prototipe en ontdek dat dit die herinneringe van Agnes Baumer bevat, ’n vroulike spioen in Duitsland gedurende die Tweede Wêreldoorlog. Met behulp van tydreise ontdek Kel in die verre verlede die waarheid agter die gebeure in sy hede.

Life wasn't always this hard for fourteen-year-old Mvelo, who lives with her mother, Zola in the shacks on the margins of Mkhumbane township.

There were good times when they lived with Sipho, Zola's lawyer boyfriend. But when the beautiful and mysterious Nonceba Hlathi arrives, Zola has to make a choice. She also has her pride. Now their social grants have been discontinued: the one for Mvelo being underage reared by a 31-year-old single mother, and the other for Zola because of her status. And there is also an elephant growing in their shack as the terrible thing that happened that night in the revival tent remains unspoken.

In her second novel, Futhi Ntshingila once again introduces us to a cast of strong women who have little, but are determined to shape their own destinies.

In the 1980s, a small man is pulled up out of the Indian Ocean in Port Pallid, SA, claiming to have been kidnapped as a baby. The Sergeant, whose job it is to sort the local people by colour, and thereby determine their fate, peers at the boy, then sticks a pencil into his hair, as one did in those days, waiting to see if it stays there, or falls out before he gives his verdict: 'He's very odd, this Jimfish you've hauled in. If he's white he is not the right sort of white. But if he's black, who can say? We'll wait before we classify him. I'll give his age as 18, and call him Jimfish. Because he's a real fish out of water, this one is.'

So begins the odyssey of Jimfish, a South African Everyman, who defies the usual classification of race that defines the rainbow nation. His journey through the last years of Apartheid will extend beyond the borders of South Africa to the wider world, where he will be an unlikely witness to the defining moments of the dying days of the twentieth century.

Part fable, part fierce commentary on the politics of power, this work is the culmination of a lifetime's writing and thinking, on both the Apartheid regime and the history of the twentieth century, by a writer of enormous originality and range

Dawn light on the mountains, a two metre swell coming off False Bay. PI Fish Pescado – lithe, blond-haired, six-pack – is surfing. To Fish this is paradise. Except, he has no work, and a diminishing bank balance. Until a young surfer paddles up: ‘Hey, Fish, there’s a pretty chick looking for you.’ The pretty chick is Vicki Kahn, poker addict by night, lawyer by day. She’s bright, sharp, lovely. The best woman he’s ever had. And she’s got a job for him: find the murderous bastard who wiped out a bystander at an illegal drag race.

If only it were that easy. Thing is that the drag racer has connections high up. Really high up, right to the police commissioner. Thing is the police commissioner has his eye on Vicki Kahn. Thing is the police commissioner has a past, a nasty past. A past that has something to do with hit squads, assassinations, rhino horns and the kind of information that no one wants uncovered. The kind of information that involves lots of money, gold bullion in fact. The commissioner’s also got a taste for the lush life. A taste that is ruthless, savage.

Before long, Fish and Vicki can’t tell who’s a cop and who’s a robber. Or who’s gunning for them.

A Bed on Bricks gives a gift of nine stories, each tracing complex psychological journeys and relationships pulled apart by chasms of culture, age, class, race and place.

Fumbling for one another across these divides, characters are as rich and diverse as the southern African landscapes they inhabit; an out-of-place academic encounters unusual findings, a too-kind school teacher gets drawn into a drama not of his making, ambitious film-makers go in search of (mis)adventure, children encounter puberty and cross-continental lovers slowly drift apart.

As we delve deeper and deeper into the minds and feelings of these characters, we become ever more immersed in their psychologies, caught up in the tension of their relationships and the suspense of their stories.

Three young professionals set off on a hiking trail to a campsite in the upper regions of the Drakensberg mountains in KwaZulu-Natal little knowing what lies ahead when a stranger who has been following them lures them into performing a bizarre mind game which has a concealed dark intent.

What unfolds against the spectacular mountainous amphitheatre is the stranger’s journey into South Africa’s historical landscape in which he manipulates the hikers into taking on the identity of key role players in shaping the country’s destiny, scripted in such a way as to serve his sense of disillusionment of a political ideal that has come to nothing. His feelings of betrayal and anger merge with a past personal vendetta that he has with one of the hikers to the point that the mind game takes on threatening undertones.

In The Rainbow Epilogue Neville Herrington moves away from the personal experience of living in a country undergoing socio-political change in his autobiographies Growing up in White South Africa and Growing Old in Black South Africa to a more objective, critical perspective of a South Africa in which the aspirations encapsulated in the Rainbow Nation, (a term coined by Desmond Tutu and used by Mandela at the end of apartheid), have for many failed to materialise, as it has for his central character, Reginald Taylor, who supported an ideal that has not only failed to deliver, but turned on him destroying everything that is meaningful in his life.

'n Leeftyd Se Bekruip is ’n bundel verhale vol humor en avontuur. Dit gaan oor die te-voet-jag van kleinwild tot grootwild en strek oor verskillende lande en kontinente heen.

Dit gebeur nie aldag dat ‘n boer ‘n boek publiseer nie. Maar Dawie Strauss is nie ‘n gewone boer nie. Hy is ‘n boer én ‘n skrywer, ‘n jagter én ’n bewaarder.

‘n Boek wat op jou bedkassie of leunstoel, op jou see-handdoek of tydens jou vliegtuigrit op jou sal wag en sal sorg vir ‘n lekkerlees-avontuur. Sterre en kampvuur. Vriendskap en heimwee. Die bos róép…

Thalia, adrift in a small university town in South Africa in the nineties, heads to New York to study photography and to pick up the faint trail left for her by someone she has never known. The city helps her to find her way as an artist, but it never quite provides the answers she is seeking. Only years later in Johannesburg is she able to make sense of who she is and what her work might mean.

Robert is a photographer in New York in the 1970s, desperate to make memorable images in a time of spectacular experimentation in dance, music and theatre. He intuits the importance of what he is photographing, but finds it almost impossible to transcend the troubles of his own life and achieve something great through his work.

Paige leaves South Africa in the seventies to pursue her dream of being a ballet dancer. She does not anticipate the ways in which this pursuit will challenge her understanding of the art that she has known and practised all her life, and she is ill prepared for the catastrophic moment that will undo everything she has worked for.

Unbeknownst to them, Thalia, Robert and Paige share a story that links them to one another, to the turbulent worlds of New York in the 1970s and South Africa in the 1990s and, finally, to the photographs that hold the secrets of their lives.

Notes on Falling is about the hope that art will challenge perceptions and orthodoxy so that the world can be reinvented through new forms. It is also about trying to reconcile the large pictures of history with the small snapshots of our individual lives.