“A brilliant biography that will transform your understanding of this young, charismatic leader” — Joseph Nhini, BooksLive, Sunday Times

“Deeply thought-provoking” — Tyrone August, Cape Times

“Makes a good job of weaving together a number of strands that make the totality of the powerful persona Biko became ... Sheds new light on more than just Biko” — Sam Mkokeli, Business Day

Interest in the iconic Steve Biko has strongly revived, as the current generation of activists calls on his legacy and thoughts. Biko is cited and disputed particularly in the #RhodesMustFall and decolonisation movements. This comprehensive biography, shortlisted for the Alan Paton award, explores Biko's life, the people and ideas that shaped him, and his part in Black Consciousness and the struggle. Updated in an affordable new edition, Biko: A Biography presents a new generation with nuanced insights into the life and thought of a South African hero.

New edition of the late Stephen Ellis' meticulously researched book that penetrates the secrecy of the ANC in exile for the first time.

After the ANC was banned by the apartheid government in 1960, many of its leaders and members were forced to leave the country. During the next three decades, it had to operate in exile and underground. Yet the real history of this period remains shrouded in mystery.

Some events, such as the Rhodesian campaign of 1967–1968 and the Kabwe conference of 1985, are well known, but lesser known are the intense factional struggles within the organisation, recurring pro-democracy protests and the creation of a security apparatus that inspired widespread fear. Some networks within the exiled ANC became heavily involved in corruption, even colluding with elements of the apartheid security police and secret services.

External Mission aims to provide a full account of the ANC’s years in exile, penetrating the secrecy the organisation erected around itself and testing the myths that emerged from that period. It is based on an exceptionally wide range of sources, including the ANC’s own archives and foreign archives such as those in East Germany, where the movement’s security personnel were trained.

Incisive and revealing, External Mission is key to understanding South Africa today.

Schoeman het nie net elke teks in Afrikaans vertaal nie, maar voorsien dit ook van onontbeerlike voetnotas en insiggewende redakteursnotas waarin konteks, geskiedenis en betekenisverklarings gegee word. Schoeman het hom veral toegespits op tekste van plaaslike inwoners en boorlinge, eerder as die van besoekers of reisigers, en wys in sy voorwoord daarop dat hierdie bloemlesing dus die vroegste geskrewe letterkunde van Suid-Afrika bevat. Die tekste (telkens deur Schoeman in Afrikaans vertaal) gee 'n beeld van die Nederlandse koloniale tydperk in Suid-Afrika.

In 1914 het ’n groep Afrikaners in verset teen die Unieregering gekom, aangevuur deur “Siener” van Rensburg se visioene wat vertel het van die ondergang van die Britse ryk.

Toe Louis Botha net ná die aanvang van die Eerste Wêreldoorlog aankondig dat die Unie Duits-Suidwes-Afrika sou inval, was die vet in die vuur en het honderde opstandige manne die wapen opgeneem. Volgens die joernalis L.E. Neame was dit “one of the most curious and dramatic incidents in the Great War”.

Naas die Groot Trek en die Anglo-Boereoorlog het die rebellie ’n prominente plek in Afrikanergeskiedsbeskouinge ingeneem. Dit is derhalwe nie verbasend nie dat daar reeds heelwat navorsing oor die opstand gedoen is, maar met Radelose Rebellie? ondersoek prof. Albert Grundlingh en dr. Sandra Swart aspekte daarvan wat tot dusver grotendeels verwaarloos is.

Was dit inderdaad so ’n vae, ongestadige verskynsel soos talle kommentators beweer? Was dit ’n redelose, radelose rebellie? Of het meer daaragter gesteek?

The Game Ranger, The Knife, The Lion And The Sheep offers spell-binding stories of some amazing, little known characters from South Africa, past and very past. Let us introduce you to some of the characters you’ll meet inside.

Starting with Krotoa, the Khoi maiden who is found working in the Van Riebeeck household as both servant and interpreter. In time she becomes the concubine of Danish surgeon Pieter Merhoff and later his wife. But did she jump (allured by the European glitz and good food) or was she pushed (abducted or sold to the Van Riebeeck’s by her uncle Atshumatso, otherwise Herry)? Was she raped or a willing sexual parter of Meerhoff? Women, like fresh meat and vegetables, were in short supply in those early colonial years in the Cape.

Then there is Mevrou Maria Mouton who preferred to socialise with the slaves than her husband on their farm in the Swartland, and with whom she conspired to murder him. What became of them is … best those gory details are glossed over for now.

And the giant Trekboer Coenraad de Buys, rebel, renegade, a man with a price on his head who married many women (none of them white) and fathered a small nation. The explorer Lichtenstein called him a modern-day Hercules. Then there are the men of learning and insight, such as Raymond Dart and Adrian Boshier, who opened up the world of myths and ancient artefacts so we now better understand the ancients and the world they created for us to inherit. Or James Kitching who broke open rocks in the Karoo to reveal creatures that inhabited this region long before even Africa was born.

And so, without further ado, we give you our selection of stories about remarkable characters from the veld. These stories will excite, entertain and enthral you! You will finish reading them wishing you had more!

1994 symbolised the triumphal defeat of almost three and a half centuries of racial separation since the Dutch East India Company planted a bitter almond hedge to keep indigenous people out of `their' Cape outpost in 1659. But for the majority of people in the world's most unequal society, the taste of bitter almonds linger as their exclusion from a dignified life remain the rule.

In the year of South Africa's troubled coming-of-age, veteran investigative journalist Michael Schmidt brings to bear 21 years of his scribbled field notes to weave a tapestry of the view from below: here in the demi-monde of our transition from autocracy to democracy, in the half-light glow of the rusted rainbow, you will meet neo-Nazis and the newly dispossessed, Boers and Bushmen, black illegal coal miners and a bank robber, witches and wastrels, love children and land claimants.

With their feet in the mud, the Born Free youth have their eyes on the stars.

A photographic slice of conscript life in the South African Defence ForceThis pictorial is a compilation of images obtained by the author while working on his first book-an oral history of pre-1994 South African Defence Force national service. It was illegal to take photos; however, there were inevitably those conscripts who ignored the rules, aiming their cheap, disposable cameras at whatever they could, but usually among comrades or when it was considered safe to do so. Inevitably certain images are poor in quality, often blurred and off-centre. But that is the reality-hastily-taken amateur snapshots. Even so, many are remarkably clear, serving to illustrate a period when over 600,000 white South African males, between 1951 and 1993, were ordered to join the South African Defence Force for service mainly 'on the border', or the 'Operational Area'-South West Africa (Namibia) and Angola. It is of note that all the photos, apart from Operation Protea, were taken by non-professional soldiers; young men some would call boys. Some patriotically embraced their call-ups as an opportunity to serve their country, while most stoically accepted their unsought-for lot-the law, and a war to protect South Africa from the spread of communism, the Red Tide. Cameron Blake was born in 1969 in Johannesburg where he grew up. He graduated from the University of Cape Town in 1991, with a Diploma in Graphic Design. In 1992, still liable for compulsory national service-albeit in the early '90s when most conscripts were not heeding their call-ups-he cleared in at Voortrekkerhoogte, a large military base outside Pretoria. After doing his basic training in the Technical Services Corps, he transferred to the Ordnance Services Corps in Cape Town, completing his service in the media department. After a decade of varying careers in creative media fields, he finally teamed up with a long-time friend to open a small shop in Cape Town's CBD. The shop specializes in coins, medals and surplus militaria: his true passions. It was here that he began networking with veterans and collecting their stories, in line with his interest in southern African military history. His first book, Troepie: From Call-up to Camps, was published in 2009, and the sequel, From Soldier to Civvy, in 2010.

This book is more than family history. It will open your eyes to how the British subjugated their colonies and Christian missions were used to promote British trade. It also deals with the fallouts from the clash between Christianity and local (Igbo) customs. It derives from the handwritten personal account of one of the early Nigerian Christian missionaries and explains some of these and more. Feed your curiosity!

Dis 'n fassinerende verslag van die lewe in maksimumsekuriteit-gevangenisse, met vars invalshoek: China was hondemeester, aan die voorfront tydens tronkgevegte. Gewapen slegs met 'n knuppel en sy hond moes hy messtekers en oproeriges afweer. Hy is 'n mensch, 'n ongeslypte diamant met hart en ondernemingsgees.

Hy herinner aan Bennie Griessel: hy rook en drink straf, sy huwelik is op die rotse, hy sukkel om gevoelens te wys, maar oor 'n hond wat doodgaan, grens hy. Sy eerste pos, toe hy net 16 was, was op Robbeneiland, waar hy 'n lang, breedgeskouerde gevangene met 'n vriendelike gesig gesien skerm het. Hy was self 'n bokser en kon sien die man het 'n besonderse tegniek, dat hy lig op sy voete soos 'n weltergewig was.

Die bokser was Nelson Mandela. Saans het Mandela deur sy tralies vir die seun hardgekookte eiers wat hy afgeskil het, aangegee, dan eet hulle saam en gesels. Mandela het hom altyd aaangepor om verder te gaan leer.

Cape Town, 2018. South Africa’s mother city is wracked by drought. The prospect of premier Helen Zille’s ‘Day Zero’ – the day when all taps run dry – is driving its citizens into a frenzy. When it’s announced that Mayor Patricia de Lille is off the water crisis, the predicament reaches its zenith and politicians turn upon each other.

And so begins a stupendous battle within the Democratic Alliance: who will lead Cape Town? It’s during this time that author and researcher Crispian Olver applies to the City of Cape Town to gain access to certain official documents as part of a research project. He is baffled when his application is rejected without explanation, but this only strengthens his resolve to explore how the city of his childhood is run. In particular, he has his sights set on the relationship between city politicians and property developers.

Olver interviews numerous individuals, including many ‘chopped’ from the city administration. What he uncovers is a pandora’s box of backstabbing, in-fighting and backroom deals. He explores dodgy property developments at Wescape and Maiden’s Cove, delves into attempts to ‘hijack’ civic associations, and exposes the close yet precautious relationship between the mayor and City Hall’s so-called ‘laptop boys’. But his main goal is to understand what led to the political meltdown within the Democratic Alliance, and the defection of De Lille to form her own party.

Nelson Mandela's comrade in the struggle, Denis Goldberg, spent 22 years in an Apartheid South African political prison from 1963 to 1985. In this memoir, Denis, the perennial optimist, writes about the human side of the often painful road to freedom; about the joy of love and death, human dignity, political passion, comradeship, conflict between comrades...and a very long imprisonment. These memoirs offer the reader an insight into an important chapter in the history of our struggle from a different viewpoint because the racist dogmas of apartheid dictated that he would be incarcerated apart from his Black comrades and colleagues. That segregation denied him both the companionship and the counsel of his fellow accused. His was consequently an exceedingly lonely sojourn. But, true to himself and the cause he had espoused from his youth, he bore it with courage and immense dignity.

An Open Access edition of this book will be available on publication on the Liverpool University Press and African Minds websites Though Greco-Roman antiquity ('classics') has often been considered the handmaid of colonialism, its various forms have nonetheless endured through many of the continent's decolonising transitions. Southern Africa is no exception. This book canvasses the variety of forms classics has taken in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and especially South Africa, and even the dynamics of transformation itself. How does (u)Mzantsi classics (of southern Africa) look in an era of profound change, whether violent or otherwise? What are its future prospects? Contributors focus on pedagogies, historical consciousness, the creative arts and popular culture. The volume, in its overall shape, responds to the idea of dialogue - in both the Greek form associated with Plato's rendition of Socrates' wisdom and in the African concept of ubuntu. Here are dialogues between scholars, both emerging and established, as well as students - some of whom were directly impacted by the Fallist protests of the late 20-teens. Rather than offering an apologia for classics, these dialogues engage with pressing questions of relevance, identity, change, the canon, and the dynamics of decolonisation and potential recolonisation. The goal is to interrogate classics - the ways it has been taught, studied, perceived, transformed and even lived - from many points of view.

Mahmud Modibbo Tukur's work challenges fundamental assumptions and conclusions about European colonialism in Africa, especially British colonialism in northern Nigeria. Whereas others have presented the thesis of a welcome reception of the imposition of British colonialism by the people, the study has found physical resistance and tremendous hostility towards that imposition; and, contrary to the "pacification" and minimal violence argued by some scholars, the study has exposed the violent and bloody nature of that occupation. Rather than the single story of "Indirect rule", or "abolishing slavery" and lifting the burden of precolonial taxation which others have argued, this book has shown that British officials were very much in evidence, imposed numerous and heavier taxes collected with great efficiency and ruthlessness, and ignored the health and welfare of the people in famines and health epidemics which ravaged parts of northern Nigeria during the period. British economic and social policies, such as blocking access to western education for the masses in most parts of northern Nigeria, did not bring about development but its antithesis of retrogression and stagnation during the period under study. Tukur's analysis of official colonial records and sources constitutes a significant contribution to the literature on colonialism in Africa and to understanding the complexity of the Nigerian situation today.