The gruesome murder of a homeless teenage boy suggests a methodical serial killer is at work in Walvis Bay, a depressed port, isolated in the vast sweep of the Namib Desert. Corrupt and claustrophobic, the shifting population of Walvis Bay consists of transients and vagabonds – people with no future and no past. When it seems that the serial killer may be working undetected in this pit of darkness and desperation, investigative journalist and criminal profiler Dr Clare Hart is brought in to investigate. Tangled up in her own doomed love affair, Clare is happy for the distraction – until it becomes clear that it is really her life at stake.

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.     

Dit was nog nie behoorlik dag nie toe Kaatjie Danster, haastig op pad Halte toe, die kind van die weemoed in die voetpaadjie voor haar gewaar. Tjoepstil het hy gestaan en luister na die wind. Sy het dadelik geweet: Druppeltjie du Pisanie, kind van Waterwyser du Pisanie en KensTillie Moolman, het die lewe vir die dood verruil. Maar hoe Druppeltjie onder in die boorgat beland het, dit weet niemand nie. En die af-arm magistraat wat nou, veertien maande later, kom ondersoek instel na die oorsaak van sy dood, torring verniet aan dinge wat verby is. Want Toorberg se mense – die lewendes en die dooies – ken van geheime wegbere. Net oor een ding het magistraat van der Ligt dit reg: hoe meer getuies daar is, hoe verder wyk die waarheid.

Twee gewese speurders word koelbloedig langs 'n plaasdam afgemaai. En Kassie en Rooi moet die moordsaak oorneem by 'n uitgedunde Paarlse speurspan wat al 'n week lank daarmee kleitrap.

Met die ooglopendste aspekte van die ondersoek reeds afgehandel, voel dit vir Kassie of hulle 'n saak erf waarvan die karkas klaar skoon gevreet is. Kassie bevraagteken egter die Paarliete se afleiding dat diefstal die motief vir die moorde was. Wanneer hy en Rooi ander moontlikhede ondersoek, begin dinge doller as kopaf raak.

Geraamtes uit die verlede, 'n oud-lid van die Brixtonse Moord en Roof-eenheid, 'n leier van 'n eens berugte tronkbende, en 'n swendelaar wat die grootste maatskappy-gekonkel sedert Steinhoff orkestreer, sorg vir talle vrae waarvan die Spookeenheid-speurders probeer sin maak. En sit daar dalk iemand anders agter die man wat die sneller getrek het?

Om sake vir Kassie te vererger, beleef hy 'n yslike persoonlike krisis wat hy nie weet hóé om te hanteer of op te los nie.

In her debut novel, Dreaming in Colour, Uvile Ximba explores with subtlety, humour and probing insight the connections between the joyful reclaiming of pleasure and the healing of buried traumas.

As students at university in Makhanda during the #RUReferenceList campaign, Langa and her lover Khwezi have a passionate and complex relationship. Puzzling gaps in her memory haunt Langa, yet her dreams are vivid with colours and symbols that hint at a nightmare of forgotten violations and losses. So many secrets -- and Langa has had enough of secrets and silences. Who can she turn to? Her mother? Her grandmother? Khwezi? Or herself?

Dreaming In Colour is Langa's story of coming out to herself, of discerning the history behind the closed door of conscious memory.

Weens die resessie in Nederland word Will se vader gedwing om as skeepsbouer in Roemenie te gaan werk. Toe die oorlog uitbreek, moet die gesin vlug en so beland hulle in Soerabaja op die eiland Java in Indonesie. Aanvanklik is hulle betreklik veilig, maar nadat Japan die eiland beset het, word die vrouens in konsentrasiekampe opgeneem. Hier beleef hulle bykans ondraaglike ellende, maar hier bewys die Nederlandse vroue ook van watter stoffasie hulle gemaak is. Die Van Halewijns oorleef die kampe en ook die Indonesiese burgeroorlog wat net na die oorlog uitbreek. Aanpassing na die oorlog is egter baie moeilik en die gesin emigreer uiteindelik na Suid-Afrika, waar Will haar ervarings aan die skryfster toevertrou het. Mariel le Roux het daarvan ’n meesleurende verhaal gemaak: Die uiters moeilike omstandighede, die hartseer en ook die ligter oomblikke word in genoeg besonderhede geskets sodat ’n mens jou daarin kan inleef.

A novel of love, loss, and redemption in a divided South Africa.

In the turbulent ’70s and ’80s, South Africa is torn apart by racial hatred and oppressive apartheid laws. While many accept the status quo, a new generation rises to challenge injustice.

Elizabeth Apollos, the daughter of farmworkers on the prestigious Tweefontein wine estate, refuses to accept the passive acceptance of her parents. When she joins a protest march, she meets Robert Booth, a passionate activist from the UK. Their forbidden love forces them into a desperate escape, leaving behind the one thing that binds them forever—Emmy, their daughter.

Emmy’s journey is one of heartbreak and resilience, as she searches for her identity and the truth behind her past. In a post-apartheid South Africa, she pieces together the fragments of love, loss, and revolution to find where she truly belongs.

The Space Between the Stars is a powerful saga of courage, forbidden love, and the relentless pursuit of justice.

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.

Bennie Griessel is eerste op die toneel: ’n bloedbad in ’n luukse gastehuis op ’n Franschhoek-wynplaas. Drie slagoffers van ’n geheimsinnige, blitsige, meedoënlose huurmoordenaar genaamd Die Kobra. Kan Griessel hom keer voordat hy weer toeslaan? Want daar was boonop ’n ontvoering . . . Ene Paul Anthony Morris, Britse burger met ’n splinternuwe paspoort. Maar wie is dié man werklik?

Voeg hierby ’n grypdief wat onwetend iets steel wat aan Die Kobra behoort, en ’n intelligensiediens wat hul neus in Griessel se sake wil steek.

Spanning en intrige uit die boonste rakke, soos net Suid-Afrika se misdaadverhaal-koning dit kan skryf!

Dit is my storie, maar dit is ook die storie van elke ouer wat al 'n keer gestruikel het," se Saskia de Coster by geleentheid oor Nagouers. De Coster (1976 - ) is 'n prominente figuur in die hedendaagse Vlaamse prosa. Danksy haar optrede by verskillende kunstefeeste is sy geen onbekende in Suid-Afrika nie. Nachtouders (2019) is intussen reeds in meer as tien tale vertaal. Dit is die verhaal van "nie-biologiese ouerskap" waarby die sielkundige spanning uiteindelik maar te herkenbaar sal wees vir ook diegene wat al met "biologiese ouerskap" gekonfronteer is. Saskia word onder verswee teensinnigheid moeder saam met haar groot liefde en eggenote, Juli. Laasgenoemde dring daarop aan om 'n eie kind in die wereld te bring. Vervolgens raak 'n skenker betrokke, Karl, 'n Kanadese homo- vriend van Saskia. Terwyl die skenkerproses self nie sonder moeite en selfs skaterende humor verloop nie, raak duidelik dat dit ondanks die kliniese aard daarvan nogtans die individuele agtergrond van elk van die betrokkenes op die spel bring. Sake word op die spits gedryf wanneer die gesinn etjie Karl se moeder op die eiland Portes aan die Kanadese Weskus besoek, 'n van die moderne wereld afgeslote plek bewoon deur 'n vergrysende hippie-gemeenskap en 'n afkerige Indiane-groep. Ouerskap, liefde en die stryd om individuele lewensruimte bly onderliggend aan die gebeure met alle eienskappe van 'n riller. Hoewel die hooffiguur ook Saskia heet en die boek eienskappe van 'n ego-dokument het, is dit 'n meesleurende roman wat uitnooi tot 'n besondere leeservaring.

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.

Universiteit van Johannesburg Debuutprys vir Skeppende Skryfkuns (2010) M-Net Letterkundetoekenning in die rolprentkategorie (2010) Inspekteur Albertus Beeslaar het genoeg gehad van die brutaliteit van misdaad in Johannesburg. Hy kom soek rus en vrede op ’n klein dorpie aan die rand van die Kalahari, waar hy ’n nuwe veediefstal-eenheid op die been moet bring. Dan word ’n grusame dubbele moord op ’n plaas gepleeg. Gou kry Beeslaar egter met veel meer as ’n “gewone plaasmoord” te doen. Hy word gekonfronteer met ’n koelbloedige veediefstalsindikaat, Afrika-towerkuns, ’n ou grondeis in ‘n plofbare politieke klimaat wat deur ’n regse wit vigilantegroep uitgebuit word. En dit is maar net die begin. ’n Naelkou-misdaadroman met ’n nuwe, eg Suid-Afrikaanse speurheld. Plaasmoord is in Nederlands vertaal as Moord op Huilwater.

Italiaanse sywurmboere word ingevoer om 'n sybedryf te kom vestig in Gouna se boswereld, maar moerbeibome verseg om in die potklei te groei. In die strawwe boswinter word die verwarde immigrante geteister deur reen, koorssiekte en onbegrip, en raak hulle al meer verbitter teen die goewerment wat hulle onder valse voorwendsels in die wildernis afgelaai het. Die man wat hulle tot hulp kom, is 'n bosmens met 'n onregeerbare dogter en 'n kop vol planne - die eiesinnige Silas Miggel. Hy wil hulle op 'n skip kry, terug Italie toe.

The CIA have approached IA3 with a strange request; the participation of an assassin in a covert operation in the USA.

How does a rogue US Senator feature in the plot and how are the Russians involved? Will the CIA double cross Bataleur and how is the FBI involved?

The poaching of the abalone in South Africa has reached alarming proportions in recent years. Unscrupulous criminals rape the sea beds in search of the delicacy.

Bataleur and the IA3 team expose and do battle with an evil Chinese gang and with local gangsters. Bataleur and the team need all of their skills to undertake the operation and ensure that they are in control.

A story of a woman’s coming of age in war-torn Paris. Her challenges, adventures and passions.

Odette is a young, highly intelligent, headstrong Parisian woman, from a bourgeois military background. She finds herself flirting around the edges of a bohemian lifestyle during the heady days of resistance fighters and WWII. Her story takes us through her work in Paris at the French Ministry of Defence, their relocation to make way for German occupation, her meeting of an enigmatic man, her journey into a world of resistance fighters and espionage during which time she discovers the pleasures of womanhood and love.

Jean is Mauritian-born of a German father and an Irish/French mother. He is an enigma. Nobody really knows who he works for. Is he a spy or not, if so, for friend or foe? He is charismatic, a born leader and undertakes daring missions as lead of a Parisian resistance cadre. He is captured and interred at Gurs internment camp. His story takes us from Mauritius to the heart of Parisian artistes and intellectual bohemians, and to the underground resistance movement, where as a leader, he sets up escape routes for the Jews of Paris.

This is their story.

Born on the cusp of democracy, the crew of young friends in Born Freeloaders navigates a life of drinking, wild parties and other recklessness. The siblings at the centre of the novel, Nthabiseng and Xolani, have been raised in an upper middle-class family with connections to the political elite. Nthabiseng is lauded by her peers as she whimsically goes through life, unable to form her own identity in a world that expects her to pick a side in the fractured classifications of race.

Xolani, not having known his late father, longs for acceptance from an uncle who sees him and his generation as the bitter fruit borne of a freedom he and countless others fought for. As the story moves across multiple spaces in the nation’s capital over a weekend, Born Freeloaders captures a political and cultural moment in the city’s and South Africa’s history. Interwoven is an analogous tale of the country’s colonisation and the consequences that follow.

And alongside the friends’ uneasy awareness of their privilege is a heightened sense of discomfort at their inability to change the world they were born into.

A farmhouse is being reproduced a dozen times, with slight variations, throughout a valley. Three small graves have been dug in the front garden, the middle one lying empty. A woman in a wheelchair sorts through boxes while her husband clambers around the old demolished buildings, wondering where the animals have gone. A young woman - called 'the barren one' behind her back - dreams of love, while an ageing headmaster contemplates the end of his life. At the entrance to the long dirt driveway, a car appears and pauses - pointed towards the house like a silver bullet, ticking with heat.

So begins The Dream House, Craig Higginson's riveting and unforgettable novel set in the Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal. Written with dark wit, a stark poetic style and extraordinary tenderness, this is a story about the state of a nation and a deep meditation on memory, ageing, meaning, family, love and loss.

This updated 2016 edition contains new content, with Craig Higginson exploring the background to The Dream House, his varied experiences in a farmhouse in KwaZulu-Natal and the subsequent and poignant motivations for this moving novel.

Growing up in Bakerton, Springs in the 1950s and '60s, Smita (Smeets) Maharaj is puzzled by a great deal of adult behaviour. Why must her tall, handsome father be so obsequious to the police? Why must brown people sit in separate train carriages from white people? Why can't her mother see how much more important it is for her to get a good education than to learn to make the perfect roti?

Caught between the beloved traditions of India and life in a quickly modernising South Africa, between family roots in Natal and a prosperous present in the Transvaal; between the madness of apartheid and the pull of her own desires, Smita struggles to find her feet in a world beset by contradictions.

As the Maharaj family expands and grows, and her mother's twin obsessions with producing a son and finding suitable boys for her daughters to marry dominate the family's discourse, Smita wrestles with satisfying her parents' wishes and following her own path as she navigates her way through school and life - and comes to terms with a long-held, painful family secret.

From Afghanistan to Johannesburg, from Libya to London, a team of highly trained undercover operatives is engaged in a race against time as terrorists plan an attack on the US Embassy in South Africa.

Martin Stevens, Eleanor Watts, Nombeko Tshivhase and Lukas Shabalala work for the underground agency IA3 under the command of Sid Blackman, Thabo Madonsela and Julius Mafere.

When a child-trafficking ring is exposed this team must enlist the aid of the CIA and the local police services in a dangerous mission to unearth the ring-leaders. But the tentacles of this evil gang extend far beyond the borders of South Africa and the team’s investigations lead them deeper and further than they ever believed they would go.

What is the connection to the gangs of Soweto and how is the nefarious and powerful Imam Abed Al Kumein involved? What is one of the largest investment banks in South Africa’s role and who is the mysterious hacker, Vladimir Al-Masri?

What is the most you would do to halt the malevolent actions of powerful people? How many dots would you join, when they led you into unspeakable horrors and danger?

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.

When Adam’s wife Wendy is murdered, he executes a series of vigilante killings and as a result is invited to join an organised covert operations unit, IA3, rather than face life in prison.

Given a new name and a new identity (and a faked death to boot) Adan adopts the identity of Bataleur and commences his new life as a trained and lethal crime fighter and assassin, working directly for the government. Alongside his new colleagues, he works to take down prominent political players when requested, targeting corrupt businessmen and politicians alike to maintain national security and restore apparent order.

Taking place in South Africa, Inside Out explores crime, corruption, gang culture and politics using multiple narratives and various newspaper clippings to paint a vivid and action-packed story of lawbreaking and violence that is well-concealed from society.

In her debut collection of short stories, Lindiwe Nkutha takes us through the minds of people you may overlook on an ordinary day: The wayward neighbour you vaguely remember seeing every day as a child until the day he vanished. The face you see every weekend at the local drinking hole, you exchange a polite nod but know little about, not even her name. The young woman who is caught between her faith and her love for a woman. Their lives are untidy, tainted with the pain, joy and violence as they share with us stories they wouldn't share with anyone else.

Nkutha's words weave in and around the weights we drag behind us from one place to another, with a sensitivity and wit required for such vulnerabilities and intimate moments.

Novel set in the Cape before the arrival of the colonists.

Kanu, a young man from the Ofuru tribe, leaves his newly pregnant wife Afua, his hut and his tribe and goes into the mountains in search of his identity and to listen for the name of his son.

For Kanu, the quest for his child's name can only begin through the ritual of first understanding who he is. As he journeys in a search for his own identity and his child's future, he must reexamine his place in the world and the implications for those around him.

Set in precolonial Africa, Kanu must navigate the questions of meaning and identity for the individual, the relationships between individuals, the conflicting interests between groups, and the tensions between individuals and the group. He does so by using his understanding of the history and culture of his people built on the foundations of duty and compassion.