‘I straighten her little tiara every morning – I lift her chin and remind her that she is meant for greater things than playground bullies.’

‘Everything shines in its own time. There is no timetable for life.
Timetables are for classrooms, not for people.’

These are just some of the wisdoms shared on The Village, South Africa’s beloved Facebook group for parents raising tweens, teens and young adults.

Having kids is a baffling endeavour beset with sulks, meltdowns, anxiety and disappointment – and that’s just the parents! When you get that call to the principal’s office? When the school acceptances don’t come? When the bedroom door slams and you hear your child sobbing behind it? All awful but the family years are also, to many of us, our most precious time. The trick? To find a way to enjoy our families, love our children and believe in them and ourselves despite the daily challenges. And laugh . . .

In this book, Vanessa Raphaely and Karin Schimke have gathered together experiences and insights from The Village members. These are the gems and remedies from the real parenting experts – the parents – to help you raise your family in your own perfectly imperfect way.

Reuben Riffel shares his secrets on how to get to flavour quicker... without the fuss.

I think every chef has a dream of how they’d cook for people in an ideal world… for me my dream scenario is definitely cooking with fire. There's a happiness that goes with cooking on a fire, a freedom and festive feel to it, that is what I love about it.

This book is about flavours first, the simplicity of cooking over fire. It’s not about how to braai, the technical stuff… rather just to share my enjoyment of cooking, and to encourage you to play and experiment with cooking over fire. You don’t have to be an expert braaimaster and slave over hot coals for hours. I like to see a fire as an extension of the kitchen, using the same spices and flavourings that I enjoy cooking with inside, but cooking over a fire for the extra flavour and a touch of smoke.

The recipes in this book are the tried and tested ones that got the thumbs up from friends and family, and range from incredibly simple to more creative. You’ll find different meats and seafoods, loads of vegetables and salads… and a good helping of quick and easy snacks to keep everyone happy kuiering by the fire while you cook the main event.

No little thorn in the flesh or irritating fly in the ointment, Zapiro just cannot be ignored.

It’s been another helluva year, and who better to make sense of it than Zapiro, political analyst, cartoonist and agent provocateur? He can knock the air out of us, rock us back in our seats and force us to bolt upright with a 1000-watt jolt of electrifying shock. He makes us angry, he makes us laugh, and he makes us think. He shines a light on the elephant in the room, presenting the emperor in all his naked glory. Impossible to brush off, he is determined to provoke a response.

When all around is crumbling, when fake news and zipped lips conceal the truth, Zapiro comes to the rescue; with the dissecting eye of a surgeon, the rapier-like point of his pen exposes flimflam and reveals with a line what lies behind the action.

What do African feminist traditions that exist outside the canon look and feel like? What complex cultural logics are at work outside the centres of power? How do spirituality and feminism influence each other? What are the histories and experiences of queer Africans? What imaginative forms can feminist activism take?

Surfacing: On Being Black and Feminist in South Africa is the first collection of essays dedicated to contemporary Black South African feminist perspectives. Leading feminist theorist, Desiree Lewis, and poet and feminist scholar, Gabeba Baderoon, have curated contributions by some of the finest writers and thought leaders. Radical polemic sits side by side with personal essays, and critical theory coexists with rich and stirring life histories. By including writings by Patricia McFadden, Panashe Chigumadzi, Sisonke Msimang, Zukiswa Wanner, Yewande Omotoso, Zoë Wicomb and Pumla Dineo Gqola alongside emerging thinkers, activists and creative practitioners, the collection demonstrates a dazzling range of feminist voices.

The writers in these pages use creative expression, photography and poetry in eclectic, interdisciplinary ways to unearth and interrogate representations of Blackness, sexuality, girlhood, history, divinity, and other themes. Surfacing is indispensable to anyone interested in feminism from Africa, which its contributors show in vivid and challenging conversation with the rest of the world. It will appeal to a diverse audience of students, activists, critical thinkers, academics and artists.

Sukkel jy met selfvertroue? Vergelyk jy jouself gedurig met die wêreld se idee van perfeksie? Verhinder jou gebrek aan selfvertroue jou om doelwitte te bereik en werklik sukesvol te wees? Jy is nie alleen nie.

Van die slimste en mooiste vroue ter wêreld het lae selfvertroue. In hierdie boek deel Rolene Strauss hoe ook sy met 'n tekort aan selfvertroue gesukkel het, selfs terwyl sy die Mej. Wêreldkroon gedra het. Deur haar meestersgraad in professionele lewensafrigting en ure se afrigtingsessies met vroue wat met lae selfvertroue gesukkel het, het Rolene waardevolle insigte bekom oor hoe vroue hul selfvertroue kan bou en behou.

Herontdek Jou Selfvertroue is ’n onontbeerlike gids vir vroue wat die moed en vertroue wil hê om hul drome vreesloos na te jaag.

In the early 1990's the Norwood Rapist and serial killer was on the loose, sending a suburb of women into terror. In a deadly game of cat and mouse, echoing Clarice and Hannibal Lector in Silence of The Lambs, Lazarus is used by the police as a decoy to hunt Geldenhyus who has terrorised the JHB suburb of Norwood. It becomes extremely personal – the hunter hunting the hunted.

Set in the newsroom of the predigital era, the gruesome story was competing with some of the hugest headlines in our transition to democracy. Written as a riveting behind-the-headlines true crime memoir with a most unusual twist, the book explores fascinating newsroom ethics and questionable police procedures while delving into the power relationship between a reporter, an editor and a serial killer.

If we are to believe that journalists should shape the news – not make the news – Lazarus breaks just about every rule in the newsroom guide book as she becomes increasingly obsessed with Geldenhyus.

Shortly after the giant bronze statue of Cecil John Rhodes came down at the University of Cape Town, student protestors called for the decolonisation of universities. It was a word hardly heard in South Africa's struggle lexicon and many asked: What exactly is decolonisation? This book brings together some of the most innovative thinking on curriculum theory to address this important question.

In the process, several critical questions are raised:

• Is decolonisation simply a slogan for addressing other pressing concerns on campuses and in society?
• What is the colonial legacy with respect to curricula and can it be undone?
• How is the project of curricula decolonisation similar to or different from the quest for post-colonial knowledge, indigenous knowledge or a critical theory of knowledge?
• What does decolonisation mean in a digital age where relationships between knowledge and power are shifting?

Strong conceptual analyses are combined with case studies of attempts to `do decolonisation' in settings as diverse as South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania and Mauritius. This comparative perspective enables reasonable judgments to be made about the prospects for institutional take-up within the curriculum of century-old universities. Decolonisation in Universities is essential reading for undergraduate teaching, postgraduate research and advanced scholarship in the field of curriculum studies.

All the numbers on South Africa’s crisis dashboard are blinking red. The economy is failing to grow and more and more young people find themselves on the outside looking in as education falters and jobs disappear. Energy and transport are in crisis. Governance is floundering as debt mounts and government runs out of money.

Better Choices is a collection by South Africa’s top thinkers on the political economy, providing an unflinching account of the myriad challenges the country faces. The picture that emerges is of a nation on the brink of a catastrophic slide into failure unless better, if tough, policy choices are made. As stark as these problems are, their solutions are tantalisingly close at hand. The chapters in this book outline exactly the solutions – those ‘better choices’– that need to be made by leadership to alter the country’s bleak trajectory.

South Africa cannot talk its way out of trouble. Key to success is removing the sources of friction – the red tape, over-regulation and rents – that slow down investment. This is only possible if a more effective, focused government acts decisively.

Compiled by The Brenthurst Foundation, Africa’s leading think tank on economic development, Better Choices is for those who want to build a positive, inclusive future for South Africa.

'n Intieme blik op bendegeweld – van dié wat die geweld gepleeg het sowel as dié wat onskuldig is. Carla van der Spuy praat met mense van ’n gangster wat “nie genoeg vingers en tone het” om te sê hoeveel mense hy gedood het nie tot ’n ma wie se kind sonder waarskuwing aangeval was. Sy laat toe dat mense in hul eie woorde ’n beeld skep van die hoop en wanhoop, onsekerheid en vasberadenheid wat deel is van lewe tussen gangsters.

Met hierdie boek is daar insig tot hoe die gangs ledes kry, sowel as hoe mense probeer om weg te breek daarvan. Daar is insig vanaf ’n polisielid en van die groep wat ’n veel beter rehabilitasiesyfer het as die tronk – want daar is steeds hoop. Hier lê ’n gemeenskap sy hart bloot.

Africa has received $1.2 trillion in development assistance since 1990. Even though donors have spent more than $1 000 per person over these 30 years, the average income of sub-Saharan Africans has increased by just $350. The continent has very little to show for this money, some of which has been consumed by the donors themselves, much of it by local governments and elites. There must be a better way to address the poverty pandemic.

Expensive Poverty is focused on answering the trillion-dollar question: why have decades of spending had such a small impact on improving the lives of the poor? Whatever the area of aid expenditure – humanitarian, governance, military, development – the overall intention should be the same: to try to reach the point that aid is no longer necessary.

Expensive Poverty lays out how to get there.

Imtiaz Sooliman, a medical doctor practising in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, visited a Shaikh in Istanbul in 1992. The Sufi teacher gave him a message that would dramatically change the lives of countless people.

‘To my absolute astonishment he told me I would help people for the rest of my life. He then instructed me to form a humanitarian organisation called the “Gift of the Givers”, and repeated the phrase “the best among people are those who benefit mankind”.’

Almost 30 years later Gift of the Givers, Africa’s largest humanitarian and disaster agency, has a reputation for speedy responses to floods, war, famine, fires, tsunamis, kidnapping and earthquakes. Well known for their interventions in South African and international disasters, teams of volunteers have undertaken missions to places such as Bosnia, Palestine, Japan, Haiti, Indonesia, Malawi and Mozambique. In the last few years they have turned their attention to the poorest South Africans - they have put up hospitals, run clinics, dug wells, drilled boreholes, built houses, offered scholarships and provided shelter, food and psychological succour to millions.

Originally published in 2014, the book has been brought up to date to continue the extraordinary tale of an organisation that has become a South African legend – the first to intervene in so many devastating situations and bring hope to those who have lost everything. Gift of the Givers’ reputation for direct, honest and non-partisan solution-finding has become a beacon of hope in South Africa.

Wits University celebrates 100 years of academic and research excellence, innovation, and social justice in 2022. The origins of Wits lie in the South African School of Mines, which was established in Kimberley in 1896 and transferred to Johannesburg as the Transvaal Technical Institute in 1904, becoming the Transvaal University College in 1906 and renamed the South African School of Mines and Technology four years later. Full university status was granted in 1922, incorporating the College as the University of the Witwatersrand. Professor Jan H. Hofmeyr was its first Principal.

The University of the Witwatersrand occupies a special place in the hearts and minds of South Africans. Its history is inextricably linked with the development of Johannesburg, with mining and economic development, and with political and social activism across the country.

Wits University at 100: From Excavation to Innovation captures important moments of Wits’ story in celebration of the university’s centenary in 2022. It explores Wits’ origins, the space and place that it occupies in society, and its transformation as it prepares the ground for the next century. From its humble beginnings as a mining college in Johannesburg to its current position as a flourishing and inclusive university, Wits University at 100 is a story of innovation driven from the global South.

In text and image, Wits is presented as a dynamic institution that thrives because of its people, many of whom, in one way or another, have shifted the world. The experiences, achievements and insights of past and present ‘Witsies’ come alive in this glossy, full-colour book that maps the university’s vision for the future.

Journalist Sarah Bullen and her filmmaker husband Llewellyn seemed like a golden couple, with successful careers and two lovely children. But then Llewellyn discovers that he has a brain tumour. As he pursues a shamanic path to fight the cancer, they are catapulted into a world of ritual and ceremony. With hospitals, surgery and treatments comes a wilder journey of spiritual searching. Then the impossible happens: she falls ill. While in a coma, Sarah travels through near-death and into other realms and worlds.

She comes back with a message and a spark to follow – to choose joy over fear. It becomes a roadmap to allow her to write a new life story and call in a new way of living rooted in bliss, joy and love.

Taking us from Hout Bay to the Mediterranean and back, Sarah’s story is in turn sad, funny and magical, filled with laughter and tears. From African rituals in the bush to a Greek island of sex and celebration, Love & Above is filled with wild rapture and infinite possibility.

A compelling and agonising story.

Durban-based journalist Glynis Horning and her husband Chris woke up one Sunday morning almost two years ago to the devastating discovery of their 25-year-old son Spencer dead in his bed. Horning’s story chronicles a parent’s worst nightmare. Establishing that his death was suicide, Horning embarks on a journey of anguished self-recrimination.

Should she not have seen the signs? Could she somehow have prevented it? As she struggles with Spencer’s decision to end his life, she has to learn to understand what the depths of depression entail. We feel Horning’s pain, and learn to understand and feel Spencer’s pain, at a visceral level.

Surrounded by loving family and friends, Horning pieces together the puzzle of Spencer’s death, writing with a brutal and heart-searing intensity of grief and loss, but also of the joys of celebrating her son’s life. This book will touch anyone who has experienced a mental health journey directly or indirectly, or a searing loss. Her wisdom and insight are extraordinary.

Stellenbosch is world renowned for its wine, gorgeous scenery, and beautiful people. It’s the home of students working towards their future, successful businessmen and respected professors. But don’t let the luxury and blue mountains fool you. The sleepy town hides numerous crimes that rocked this community, the country and the world.

Over the past two decades the front pages of newspapers splashed the details of the murders of Inge Lotz, Hannah Cornelius, Susan Rohde, the Van Breda family... But this book also contains the less known victims such as Felicity Cilliers, the farm worker who’s murder was forgotten by all but her family. The victims and the murderers in this book come from all walks of life and confirms that not even Stellenbosch can escape the harsh reality of crime in South Africa.

The acclaimed author and journalist Julian Jansen third book reads like a crime novel and contains never before published information on each of the crimes.

Across the face of southern Africa are more than 460 remarkable stone palaces, once the abodes of kings. Some are small, others ramble, but many are absolutely astonishing: all are the legacy of kingdoms past.

Palaces of Stone brings to life the story of these early African societies, from AD 900 to approximately 1850. Some, such as Great Zimbabwe and Khami in Zimbabwe and Mapungubwe in South Africa, are famous world heritage sites, but the majority are unknown to the general public, unsung and unappreciated. Yet, the stone ruins that have survived tell a common story of innovative architecture and intricate stonework; flourishing local economies; long-distance travel; global trade; and emerging forms of political organisation.

By exploring a selection of known and unknown sites, Palaces of Stone reimagines the apparently empty spaces bequeathed to us by history, an Africa of places that once hummed with life. All that remains now are the ruins – a bedrock from which to unravel the past and understand the present.

A book that taps into the current debate around resource rentals in South Africa, and outlines practical steps that can be taken to a different tax regime.

Land rent can provide jobs for all if we just collect it instead of taxing those who create wealth or seek merely to survive. This rent, or the locational advantage of each piece of land, is owed to the community, whose grant of security of tenure enables the owner to enjoy its man-made and natural advantages. Rent has been a phenomenon since the time of the Physiocrats and Adam Smith, but its potential has been ignored and the world has got lost in an economic jungle of its own making.

This book is based on a very simple proposal: replace most taxation with collection of land and other natural resource rentals. It shows the way to the broad uplands of prosperity for all, and explains why it is time for us to talk about rent! It taps into the current debate in the media and economic and political circles around resource rentals in South Africa, and outlines practical steps that can be taken to a different tax regime. This book is highly relevant and topical, and offers much to stimulate further debate whilst offering something positive and workable.

South Africa’s distorted distribution of wealth is one of the biggest challenges facing the country’s economy, with unemployment sitting at an unsustainable 27.7%. In terms of wealth, the top percentile households hold 70.9% while the bottom 60% holds a mere 7%. 76% of South Africans face an imminent threat of falling below the poverty line. With such statistics, the inequality crisis in this country is at a desperate level and strategies to remedy this challenge seem shallow and lack urgency.

In this context, the Institute for African Alternatives has brought together a series of papers written by eminent South African academics and policymakers to serve as a catalyst to finally confront and resolve inequality. With papers from former Public Prosecutor Thuli Madonsela, Ben Turok and former President Kgalema Motlanthe, this book provides a guide to how the nation can confront and resolve the inequality plaguing the country. The nation is headed to the polls later this year and books such as this are vital for providing a strong guide on how those in power can address South Africa’s biggest economic crisis.

A great contribution to the current political discourse, the book both confronts the issue and provides strategies on how to remedy inequality.

This timely collection of essays analyses the crisis of journalism in contemporary South Africa at a period when the media and their role are frequently at the centre of public debate.

The transition to digital news has been messy, random and unpredictable. The spread of news via social media platforms has given rise to political propaganda and fake news. Yet media companies oust experienced journalists in favour of 'content producers'. Against this backdrop, Daniels points out the contribution of investigative journalists to exposing corruption and sees new opportunities to forge a model for the future of non-profit, public-funded journalism. She argues for the power of public interest journalism and the reflection of a diversity of voices and positions in the news.

The book addresses the gains and losses from decolonial and feminist perspectives and advocates for a radical shift in the way power is constituted by the media in the South African postcolony. With her years of experience as a newspaper journalist, Daniels writes with authority and illuminates complex issues about newsroom politics. A semi-autobiographical lens and interviews with alienated media professionals add a personal element that will appeal to a range of readers interested in the workings of the media.

In this majestic book, new South African president Cyril Ramaphosa reveals his passion and love for cattle as he introduces us to the magnificent Ankole cattle, originating in Uganda, and now, through his intervention, flourishing in South Africa.

He reflects on the legacy bequeathed him by his father, Samuel Ramaphosa, who had to leave behind his cattle herd in Venda to find work as a migrant worker in Johannesburg. Life in the city was tough and demanding, weakening Samuel’s links with his ancestral origins and causing the loss of his herd. The love of cattle runs deep in South Africans and Cyril is doing more than restoring his father’s loss, he is resuscitating a new pride for South Africans with these remarkable cattle.

The Ankole have become the flavour de jour. A few years ago the Nguni reigned supreme, now the attention and focus is on these regal animals with their soaring horns. Cattle of the Ages is the Abundant Herds of the Ankole.

This hardcover book is designed by Gabrielle Guy and is destined to become a collector’s piece.

The healing power of life writing, one shared story at a time

This Is How It Is a “refreshing, poignant and wide-ranging” (Helen Moffett) collection of real life experiences: 52 stories, prose and poetry, that tell of a man who is anxious about an HIV test; a child with an alarming nose for gossip and a girl who is saved by the enemy in a war zone. Some of the writers are grieving the loss of a child or struggling with addiction, abuse, bullying or betrayal. Most of these writers have never been published before. They wrote these stories primarily to bear witness to their lives and the troubled times in which we live. Putting traumatic experiences down on paper can help people work through shame, guilt and fear, releasing them from the traps they lay. Writing is sometimes able to turn a painful incident into something more manageable, even beautiful.

Sharing stories can also heal both the writer and the reader. When we first meet a stranger, we make assumptions about them. When we hear of their life in their own words, we find that many of our negative assumptions are wrong. Often we discover that we are more alike than we are different. Our magnificent world is in trouble, much of it because we are not paying attention to what is right in front of us. When the facts don’t stir us to reconsider, story can. This anthology invites us to become curious and reflective rather than fearful and defensive. It encourages us to climb down from the ladder of hierarchy and competition and to join the circle of relationship and humanity by becoming vulnerable enough to share and listen to our own and each other’s half-hidden stories.

But equally importantly, Bongani Kona, 2016 Caine Prize finalist, reminds us: “We forget that the most daring thing we can do is to allow ourselves to be seen. To stand before the world and to say this is who I am. This is how it is.”

About THE LIFE RIGHTING COLLECTIVE: The Life Righting Collective (LRC) runs courses for anyone who wants to learn to write about their experiences. The approach promotes self-discovery, self-recovery and more effective communication. It raises funds to make courses available to those in need of sponsorship and to provide platforms for these life stories to be published. Sharing experiences with a wide readership can help reduce discrimination and promote mutual understanding. Visit the website: www.liferighting.com

Lenerd Louw shares his journey of learning and awakening.

Jump is a book about Lenerd Louw's experiences including his playboy lifestyle in Cape Town, the difficulty and confusion when a massive internal shift occurred in him, the decision to walk away from it all, starting the outer journey all around the world whilst doing the tough deep inner journey at the same time. It includes his two-year period of celibacy at the start of his travels, his travels to fascinating places and his learnings at each place. It’s a story of personal expansion and awakening, of surrender, of trust and of transformation.

He sees the same shift now happening to many people around him, be it ex colleagues, friends or new people he has met. He feels a calling to share his journey. The book is one way of doing that!

"Former Miss Universe and Miss South Africa Demi-Leigh Tebow confesses the danger of tying our identities to our accomplishments. Discover the truth of who you were created to be and how to use your platform, no matter how big or small, for eternal impact.

The purpose of our lives is to love and serve God and others. Demi shows how you can be encouraged to focus not just on your aspirations, but on your greater purpose and leave behind a footprint of significance, not just success."

For nearly eighty years, a huge portion of coastal South Africa was closed off to the public. With many of its pits now deemed “overmined” and abandoned, American journalist Matthew Gavin Frank sets out across the infamous Diamond Coast to investigate an illicit trade that supplies a global market. Immediately, he became intrigued by the ingenious methods used in facilitating smuggling particularly, the illegal act of sneaking carrier pigeons onto mine property, affixing diamonds to their feet, and sending them into the air.

Entering Die Sperrgebiet (“The Forbidden Zone”) is like entering an eerie ghost town, but Frank is surprised by the number of people willing—even eager—to talk with him. Soon he meets Msizi, a young diamond digger, and his pigeon, Bartholomew, who helps him steal diamonds. It’s a deadly game: pigeons are shot on sight by mine security, and Msizi knows of smugglers who have disappeared because of their crimes. For this, Msizi blames “Mr. Lester,” an evil tall-tale figure of mythic proportions.

From the mining towns of Alexander Bay and Port Nolloth, through the “halfway” desert, to Kleinzee’s shores littered with shipwrecks, Frank investigates a long overlooked story. Weaving interviews with local diamond miners who raise pigeons in secret with harrowing anecdotes from former heads of security, environmental managers, and vigilante pigeon hunters, Frank reveals how these feathered bandits became outlaws in every mining town.

Interwoven throughout this obsessive quest are epic legends in which pigeons and diamonds intersect, such as that of Krishna’s famed diamond Koh-i-Noor, the Mountain of Light, and that of the Cherokee serpent Uktena. In these strange connections, where truth forever tangles with the lore of centuries past, Frank is able to contextualize the personal grief that sent him, with his wife Louisa in the passenger seat, on this enlightening journey across parched lands.

Blending elements of reportage, memoir, and incantation, Flight of the Diamond Smugglers is a rare and remarkable portrait of exploitation and greed in one of the most dangerous areas of coastal South Africa.

Falling Monuments, Reluctant Ruins: The Persistence of the Past in the Architecture of Apartheid interrogates how, in the era of decolonisation, post-apartheid South Africa reckons with its past in order to shape its future. Architects, historians, artists, social anthropologists and urban planners seek answers in this book to complex and unsettling questions around heritage, ruins and remembrance.

What do we do with hollow memorials and political architectural remnants? Which should remain, which forgotten, and which dismantled? Are these vacant buildings, cemeteries, statues, and derelict grounds able to serve as inspiration in the fight against enduring racism and social neglect? Should they become exemplary as spaces for restitution and justice? The contributors examine the influence of public memory, planning and activism on such anguished places of oppression, resistance and defiance. Their focus on visible markers in the landscape to interrogate our past will make readers reconsider these spaces, looking at their landscape and history anew.

Through a series of 14 empirically grounded chapters and 48 images, the contributors seek to understand how architecture contests or subverts these persistent conditions in order to promote social justice, land reclamation and urban rehabilitation. The decades following the dismantling of apartheid are surveyed in light of contemporary heritage projects, where building ruins and abandoned spaces are challenged and renegotiated across the country to become sites of protest, inspiration and anger.

This ground-breaking collection is an important resource for professionals, academics and activists working in South Africa today.