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Books > Language & Literature > Literature: texts > General

Sol Plaatje's Mhudi - History, Criticism, Celebration (Paperback): Sabata-Mpho Mokae, Brian Willan Sol Plaatje's Mhudi - History, Criticism, Celebration (Paperback)
Sabata-Mpho Mokae, Brian Willan
R320 R250 Discovery Miles 2 500 Save R70 (22%) Ships in 5 - 10 working days

Sol Plaatje’s Mhudi is one of South Africa’s most famous novels.

First published in 1930, it is the first full-length novel by a black South African writer, and is widely read and studied in South African schools, colleges and universities. It has been translated into a number of different languages. Written over 30 years before Chinua Achebe’s famous Things Fall Apart, Mhudi is a pioneering African novel too, anticipating many of the themes with which Achebe and other writers from the African continent were concerned.

Mhudi has had a complicated history. Critics have been divided in their views, and there was a delay of ten years between the time Plaatje wrote the book and when it was published. A century on from when it was written, the time is now right to both celebrate its composition and to assess its meanings and legacy.

In this book, a distinguished cast of contributors explore the circumstances in which Mhudi was both written and published, what the critics have made of it, why it remains so relevant today. Chapters look at the eponymous feminist heroine of the novel and what she symbolizes, the role of history and oral tradition, the contentious question of language, the linguistic and stylistic choices that Plaatje made. In keeping with Mhudi’s capacity to inspire, this book also includes a poem and short story, specially written in order to pay tribute to both the book and its author.

Writing Home - Lewis Nkosi on South African Writing (Paperback): Lindy Stibel, Michael Chapman Writing Home - Lewis Nkosi on South African Writing (Paperback)
Lindy Stibel, Michael Chapman
R175 R137 Discovery Miles 1 370 Save R38 (22%) Ships in 5 - 10 working days

Lewis Nkosi's insights into South African literature, culture and society first appeared in the 1950s, when the `new' urban African in Sophiatown and on Drum magazine mockingly opposed then Prime Minister H.F. Verwoerd's Bantu retribalisation policies. Before his death in 2010, Nkosi focused on the literary-cultural challenges of post-Mandela times. Having lived for 40 years in exile, he returned to South Africa, intermittently, after the unbannings of 1990. His critical eye, however, never for long left the home scene. Hence, the title of this selection of his articles, essays and reviews, Writing Home. Writing home with wit, irony and moral toughness Nkosi assesses a range of leading writers, including Herman Charles Bosman, Breyten Breytenbach, J.M. Coetzee, Athol Fugard, Nadine Gordimer, Bessie Head, Alex La Guma, Bloke Modisane, Es'kia Mphahlele, Nat Nakasa, Njabulo S. Ndebele, Alan Paton and Can Themba. Combining the journalist's penchant for the human-interest story with astute analysis, Nkosi's ideas, observations and insights are as fresh today as when he began his 60-year career as a writer and critic. Selected from his out-of-print collections, Home and Exile, The Transplanted Heart and Tasks and Masks, as well as from journals and magazines, Lewis Nkosi's punchy commentaries will appeal to a wide readership.

Rediscovery of the Ordinary - Essays on South African Literature and Culture (Paperback): Njabulo Ndebele Rediscovery of the Ordinary - Essays on South African Literature and Culture (Paperback)
Njabulo Ndebele
R150 R117 Discovery Miles 1 170 Save R33 (22%) Ships in 5 - 10 working days

Njabulo S. Ndebele's essays on South African literature and culture initially appeared in various publications in the 1980s. They encompass a period of trauma, defiance, and change the decade of the collapse of apartheid and the challenge of reconstructing a future. In 1991, the essays were collected under the current title of Rediscovery of the Ordinary: Essays on South African Literature and Culture. Here, this collection is reprinted without revision, together with an interview provoked by Albie Sachs paper Preparing Ourselves for Freedom. That it is possible to republish the essays without revision so many years after their first appearance is a tribute to Ndebele's prescience. The issues that he raises and the questions that he poses remain key to a people who, after apartheid, have started to rediscover the complex ordinariness of living in a civil society.

Literature and Landscape in East Devon (Paperback): Peter Nasmyth Literature and Landscape in East Devon (Paperback)
Peter Nasmyth
R488 Discovery Miles 4 880 Ships in 12 - 17 working days
Die Siel Van Die Mier (Afrikaans, Paperback): Eugene N. Marais Die Siel Van Die Mier (Afrikaans, Paperback)
Eugene N. Marais; Edited by J C Kannemeyer
R186 Discovery Miles 1 860 Ships in 4 - 8 working days

Sedert die tweede druk van die tweede uitgawe in 1975 was Die siel van die mier egter slegs as ’n skaars tweedehandse eksemplaar beskikbaar. Hierdie uitgawe is verryk deur ’n inleidende besinning oor die vraag of Maeterlinck, die Belgiese Nobelpryswenner, Marais se teorie oor die termietnes as organiese eenheid oorgeneem het. Origens blyk dit uit die verskillende drukke en uitgawes hoe Afrikaans in die jare twintig van die twintigste eeu nog op weg was om ’n wetenskaplike woordeskat te vind en die addendum bevat artikels wat vandag slegs met moeite uit ou tydskrifte en koerante opgediep kan word.

Time Murderer Please (Paperback): Raymond Dyer Time Murderer Please (Paperback)
Raymond Dyer
R322 Discovery Miles 3 220 Ships in 12 - 17 working days
Vertelkunde (Afrikaans, Paperback): Andre P. Brink Vertelkunde (Afrikaans, Paperback)
Andre P. Brink
R110 Discovery Miles 1 100 Ships in 4 - 8 working days
The Music Of The Primes - Why An Unsolved Problem In Mathematics Matters (Paperback, New ed): Marcus du Sautoy The Music Of The Primes - Why An Unsolved Problem In Mathematics Matters (Paperback, New ed)
Marcus du Sautoy 2
R307 R250 Discovery Miles 2 500 Save R57 (19%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The paperback of the critically-acclaimed popular science book by a writer who is fast becoming a celebrity mathematician. Prime numbers are the very atoms of arithmetic. They also embody one of the most tantalising enigmas in the pursuit of human knowledge. How can one predict when the next prime number will occur? Is there a formula which could generate primes? These apparently simple questions have confounded mathematicians ever since the Ancient Greeks. In 1859, the brilliant German mathematician Bernard Riemann put forward an idea which finally seemed to reveal a magical harmony at work in the numerical landscape. The promise that these eternal, unchanging numbers would finally reveal their secret thrilled mathematicians around the world. Yet Riemann, a hypochondriac and a troubled perfectionist, never publicly provided a proof for his hypothesis and his housekeeper burnt all his personal papers on his death. Whoever cracks Riemann's hypothesis will go down in history, for it has implications far beyond mathematics. In business, it is the lynchpin for security and e-commerce. In science, it has critical ramifications in Quantum Mechanics, Chaos Theory, and the future of comput

Blood and Roses - The Paston Family in the Fifteenth Century (Paperback): Helen Castor Blood and Roses - The Paston Family in the Fifteenth Century (Paperback)
Helen Castor
R509 R426 Discovery Miles 4 260 Save R83 (16%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

"A gripping family saga. . . . Page-turners are rarely written by scholars of the 15th century, but Castor wears her learning admirably lightly. Blood and Roses is nothing less than a ripping yarn." --The Indepedent (London) The Wars of the Roses tore England asunder. Over the course of thirty years, four kings lost their thrones, countless men lost their lives on the battlefield or their heads on the block, and others found themselves suddenly flush with gold. Yet until now, little has been written about the ordinary people who lived through this extraordinary time. Blood and Roses is a gripping, intimate story of one determined family conducting everyday business against the backdrop of a disintegrating society and savage civil war. Drawing on a rare trove of letters discovered in a tumbledown stately home, historian Helen Castor reconstructs the turbulent affairs of the Pastons through three generations of births, marriages, and deaths as they single-mindedly worked their way up from farmers to landed gentry. It is a remarkable chronicle of devotion, ambition, and survival that brings a remote and hazy era to vibrant new life.

A Book of Life (Paperback): Peter Kingsley A Book of Life (Paperback)
Peter Kingsley
R662 Discovery Miles 6 620 Ships in 9 - 15 working days
Memories of a Devil - My Life as a Jesuit in Dachau (Paperback): Sj Chester Fabisiak Memories of a Devil - My Life as a Jesuit in Dachau (Paperback)
Sj Chester Fabisiak
R597 R515 Discovery Miles 5 150 Save R82 (14%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days
Asian Favourite Stories: Hong Kong (Paperback): Leon Comber Asian Favourite Stories: Hong Kong (Paperback)
Leon Comber
R156 Discovery Miles 1 560 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The vocabulary and sentence structures have been kept simple so that the stories can be enjoyed without too much help, and a Glossary is included in every book giving explanations of the more difficult words. With attractive colour illustrations accompanying the stories, the Asian Favourite Stories Series aims to encourage children to read stories with a familiar background for their enjoyment and pleasure.

Uit Die Dagboek Van 'n Wildbewaarder (Afrikaans, Paperback): P.J. Schoeman Uit Die Dagboek Van 'n Wildbewaarder (Afrikaans, Paperback)
P.J. Schoeman
R163 Discovery Miles 1 630 Ships in 4 - 8 working days

Voordat die veldseun Piet Schoeman wildbewaarder geword het, het hy gedink dat die lewe van 'n wildbewaarder die ene aksie sal wees. Toe hy aangestel word as hoofwildbewaarder van die Etosha-wildtuin in die destydse Suidwes-Afrika, was dit net die plek waar hy sy onbedwingbare avontuurlus kon uitleef. Die gelyk wereld van gras en lae bossies, met orals troppies naderende wild, het vir hom 'n oneindige bekoring ingehou. Wanneer die oop ruimtes roep, kon hy nooit teruggehou word nie. Dit het dit aan hom baie tyd gelaat vir die rustige bestudering van die wild en die natuur. Hy het nooit besef dat die blote waarneming van wild ooit so interessant kan wees as die jagmaak op hulle nie. In hierdie titel openbaar hy die stiller en dieper mens binne om, die dieper mens wat so dikwels alleen in die aand by sy kampvuur sit. Hy kom tot die besef dat die mens in sy diepste wese eensaam is, en bly tot die einde toe. En vir die eerste keer maak hy vrede met homself en kan in die aand rustig gaan slaap.

Jean Francois de la Harpe, 'Letters to the Shuvalovs' 1973 (Paperback): Jean-Francois De La Harpe Jean Francois de la Harpe, 'Letters to the Shuvalovs' 1973 (Paperback)
Jean-Francois De La Harpe; Volume editing by Christopher Todd
R1,798 Discovery Miles 17 980 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series, previously known as SVEC (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century), has published over 500 peer-reviewed scholarly volumes since 1955 as part of the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford. International in focus, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment volumes cover wide-ranging aspects of the eighteenth century and the Enlightenment, from gender studies to political theory, and from economics to visual arts and music, and are published in English or French.

Rewriting Modernity - Studies in Black South African Literary History (Paperback): David Attwell Rewriting Modernity - Studies in Black South African Literary History (Paperback)
David Attwell
R140 R110 Discovery Miles 1 100 Save R30 (21%) Ships in 5 - 10 working days

Rewriting Modernity: Studies in black South African literary history connects the black literary archive in South Africa - from the nineteenth-century writing of Tiyo Soga to Zakes Mda in the twenty-first century - to international postcolonial studies via the theory of transculturation, a position adapted from the Cuban anthropologist, Fernando Ortiz. Attwell provides a welcome complication of the linear black literary history - literature as a reflection of the process of political emancipation - that is so often presented. He focuses on cultural transactions in a series of key moments and argues that black writers in South Africa have used print culture to map themselves onto modernity as contemporary subjects, to negotiate, counteract, reinvent and recast their positioning within colonialism, apartheid and in the context of democracy.

Robert Holdstock's Mythago Wood - A Critical Companion (Hardcover, 1st ed. 2022): Paul Kincaid Robert Holdstock's Mythago Wood - A Critical Companion (Hardcover, 1st ed. 2022)
Paul Kincaid
R1,108 Discovery Miles 11 080 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

This book is a detailed examination of one of the most important works of fantasy literature from the twentieth century. It goes through Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock considering how it engages with war on a personal and family level, how it plays with ideas of time as something fluid and disturbing, and how it presents mythology as something crude and dangerous. The book places Mythago Wood in the context of Holdstock's other works, noting in part how complex ideas of time have been a consistent element in his fiction. The book also briefly examines how the themes laid out in Mythago Wood are carried through into later books in the sequence as well as the Merlin Codex

The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative (Paperback, 3rd Revised edition): H.Porter Abbott The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative (Paperback, 3rd Revised edition)
H.Porter Abbott
R787 Discovery Miles 7 870 Ships in 9 - 15 working days

What is narrative? How does it work and how does it shape our lives? H. Porter Abbott emphasizes that narrative is found not just in literature, film, and theatre, but everywhere in the ordinary course of people's lives. This widely used introduction, now revised and expanded in its third edition, is informed throughout by recent developments in the field and includes one new chapter. The glossary and bibliography have been expanded, and new sections explore unnatural narrative, retrograde narrative, reader-resistant narratives, intermedial narrative, narrativity, and multiple interpretation. With its lucid exposition of concepts, and suggestions for further reading, this book is not only an excellent introduction for courses focused on narrative but also an invaluable resource for students and scholars across a wide range of fields, including literature and drama, film and media, society and politics, journalism, autobiography, history, and still others throughout the arts, humanities, and social sciences.

Mail and Guardian bedside book 2003 (Paperback): Shaun de Waal Mail and Guardian bedside book 2003 (Paperback)
Shaun de Waal
R372 Discovery Miles 3 720 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The Mail and Guardian bedside book once again selects the best of the paper's features over the last year to bring you an unparalleled snapshot of South Africa (and Africa) in cross-section - from Happy Sindane to Idi Amin, Ventersdorp to Luanda (via Hollywood), in the company of the best journalists in the country. The paper tackles the burning issues of the day - the Aids debate, the oil scandal, and the question of whatever happened to Jimmy Abbott. It pays tribute to giants of the struggle such as Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu, and visits a big fat Afrikaner wedding.

Scottish Literature - An Introduction (Paperback): Alan Riach Scottish Literature - An Introduction (Paperback)
Alan Riach
R636 Discovery Miles 6 360 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

What do we mean by 'Scottish literature'? Why does it matter? How do we engage with it? Bringing infectious enthusiasm and a lifetime's experience to bear on this multi-faceted literary nation, Alan Riach, Professor of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow, sets out to guide you through the varied and ever-evolving landscape of Scottish literature. A comprehensive and extensive work designed not only for scholars but also for the generally curious, Scottish Literature: an introduction tells the tale of Scotland's many voices across the ages, from Celtic pre-history to modern mass media. Forsaking critical jargon, Riach journeys chronologically through individual works and writers, both the famed and the forgotten, alongside broad overviews of cultural contexts which connect texts to their own times. Expanding the restrictive canon of days gone by, Riach also sets down a new core body of 'Scottish Literature': key writers and works in English, Scots, and Gaelic. Ranging across time and genre, Scottish Literature: an introduction invites you to hear Scotland through her own words.

A Word A Day - 365 Words to Augment Your Vocabulary (Paperback): Joseph Piercy A Word A Day - 365 Words to Augment Your Vocabulary (Paperback)
Joseph Piercy
R185 R148 Discovery Miles 1 480 Save R37 (20%) Ships in 5 - 10 working days

A Word a Day contains 365 carefully selected words that will enhance and expand your vocabulary, along with their meanings, origins and sample usage and fascinating word-related facts and trivia.

It is estimated that on average an English-speaking adult has acquired a functioning vocabulary of 25,000 words by the time they reach middle age. That sounds like a lot - and more than enough for the daily purposes of communicating with each other in speech and writing. However, it is hard to feel quite so sanguine about our word power when considering those 25,000 words account for less than fifteen per cent of the total words in current usage in the English language. Furthermore, new words are created all the time and, as the word pool flourishes, can we afford to allow our vocabulary to stagnate?

Logophile Joseph Piercy has the answer: a simple challenge to learn A Word a Day from this user-friendly onomasticon (that's a word list designed for a specific purpose - in case you were wondering ...). Each of the 365 words have been carefully selected for their elegance and pertinence in everyday situations and every entry contains a clear and concise outline of meaning, origin and sample usage in context, alongside fascinating word related facts and trivia.

A Word a Day is a treasure trove of fascination and fun for all language lovers - delve in and enhance your vocabulary.

The Women Are Up to Something - How Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch Revolutionized Ethics... The Women Are Up to Something - How Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch Revolutionized Ethics (Hardcover)
Benjamin J.B. Lipscomb
R819 R765 Discovery Miles 7 650 Save R54 (7%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The story of four remarkable women who shaped the intellectual history of the 20th century: Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch. On the cusp of the Second World War, four women went to Oxford to begin their studies: a fiercely brilliant Catholic convert; a daughter of privilege longing to escape her stifling upbringing; an ardent Communist and aspiring novelist with a list of would-be lovers as long as her arm; and a quiet, messy lover of newts and mice who would become a great public intellectual of our time. They became lifelong friends. At the time, only a handful of women had ever made lives in philosophy. But when Oxford's men were drafted in the war, everything changed. As Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch labored to make a place for themselves in a male-dominated world, as they made friendships and families, and as they drifted toward and away from each other, they never stopped insisting that some lives are better than others. They argued that courage and discernment and justice-and love-are the heart of a good life. This book presents the first sustained engagement with these women's contributions: with the critique and the alternative they framed. Drawing on a cluster of recently opened archives and extensive correspondence and interviews with those who knew them best, Benjamin Lipscomb traces the lives and ideas of four friends who gave us a better way to think about ethics, and ourselves.

Maatian Ethics in a Communication Context (Paperback): Melba Velez Ortiz Maatian Ethics in a Communication Context (Paperback)
Melba Velez Ortiz
R628 Discovery Miles 6 280 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Maatian Ethics in a Communication Context explores the ethical principle of Maat: the guiding principle of harmony and order that permeated classical African political and civil life. The book provides a rigorous, communication-focused account of the ethical wisdom ancient Africans cultivated and is evidenced in the form of recovered written texts, mythology, stelae, prescriptions for just speech, and the hieroglyphic system of writing itself. Moving beyond colonial stereotypes of ancient Africans, the book offers insight into the African value systems that positioned humans as inextricably embedded in nature, and communication theory that anchors good communication in careful listening habits as the foundational moral virtue. Expanding on the work of Maulana Karenga, Molefi Kete Asante and other groundbreaking scholars, the book presents a picture of civilizations with a shared lust for life, a spiritual connection to scientific speech, and the veneration of ancestors as deeply connected to the pursuit of wisdom. Offering an examination of Maat from a specifically communication ethics perspective, this book will be of great interest to scholars and students of Communication Ethics, African philosophy, Rhetorical theory, Africana Studies and Ancient History.

W.H. Davies - Man and Poet - A Reassessment (Paperback): Michael Cullup W.H. Davies - Man and Poet - A Reassessment (Paperback)
Michael Cullup
R377 Discovery Miles 3 770 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Even though he was once one of Britain's most popular writers, the reputation of the poet and memoirist W.H. Davies has, in recent decades, gone into decline. Davies's colourful early life as a hobo and a tramp - captured by his most famous work The Autobiography of a Super Tramp - and his apparently 'innocent' poems about nature, tales about the seamier sides of life, his experiences on the road and verse portraits of those characters he met there - has led to the Welsh poet being placed under the cosy heading 'Georgian'. It has been a tag which does serious disservice to the tone, nature and ambition of Davies's lyrics. As poet and critic Michael Cullup shows in this brief but insightful exploration of the entirety of Davies's output - the memoirs, the short stories as well as the poems - there was a more complex personality than the one suggested by his public persona. True, he was a figure at home with the Georgian literary world - Edward Thomas and Hilaire Belloc were close friends - yet he was also capable of impressing more avant-garde talents like Ezra Pound and Jacob Epstein. In this bracing reappraisal Cullup judiciously undermines preconceived notions of Davies the writer to reveal a poetic imagination richer, more insightful, more thoughtful than that for which he is generally given credit. Included in this critical biography is a generous and illustrative selection of Davies's verse.

The Cambridge Companion to Twenty-First Century American Fiction (Paperback): Joshua Miller The Cambridge Companion to Twenty-First Century American Fiction (Paperback)
Joshua Miller
R727 Discovery Miles 7 270 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Reading lists, course syllabi, and prizes include the phrase '21st-century American literature,' but no critical consensus exists regarding when the period began, which works typify it, how to conceptualize its aesthetic priorities, and where its geographical boundaries lie. Considerable criticism has been published on this extraordinary era, but little programmatic analysis has assessed comprehensively the literary and critical/theoretical output to help readers navigate the labyrinth of critical pathways. In addition to ensuring broad coverage of many essential texts, The Cambridge Companion to 21st Century American Fiction offers state-of-the field analyses of contemporary narrative studies that set the terms of current and future research and teaching. Individual chapters illuminate critical engagements with emergent genres and concepts, including flash fiction, speculative fiction, digital fiction, alternative temporalities, Afro-futurism, ecocriticism, transgender/queer studies, anti-carceral fiction, precarity, and post-9/11 fiction.

Ulysses - A Reader's Odyssey (Paperback): Daniel Mulhall Ulysses - A Reader's Odyssey (Paperback)
Daniel Mulhall
R431 R353 Discovery Miles 3 530 Save R78 (18%) Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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