How the three independent asset managers Coronation, Allan Gray and Investec (later Ninety One) , dubbed the CIA, came to dominate and continue to dominate the South African asset management industry, particularly the pension fund market.

There are plenty of colourful big ego personalities such as Hendrik du Toit at Ninety One, Leon Campher at Coronation and the late Allan Gray plus kingmakers reshaping thr industry such as Patrice Motsepe.

What happens when a former liberation movement turned political party loses its dominance but survives because no opposition party is able to succeed it? The trends are established: South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) is in decline. Its hegemony has been weakened, its legitimacy diluted. President Cyril Ramaphosa’s appointment suspended the ANC’s electoral decline, but it also heightened internal organisational tensions between those who would deepen its corrupt and captured status, and those who would redeem it. The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened its fragility, and the state’s inability to manage the socio-economic devastation has aggravated prior faultlines. These are the undeniable knowns of South African politics; what will evolve from this is less certain.

In her latest book Precarious Power Susan Booyen delves deep into this political terrain and its trajectory for South Africa’s future. She covers an expansive range of topics, from contradictory party politics and dissent that is veiled in order to retain electoral following, to populist policy-making and the use of soft law enforcement to ensure that angry citizens do not become further alienated. Booysen’s analysis reveals Ramaphosa to be a president who is weak and walking a tightrope between serving the needs of the organisation and those of the nation. While he rose to the challenge of being a national leader during the COVID-19 pandemic, the crisis has highlighted existing inequalities in South Africa and discontent has grown. The ANC’s power has indeed become exceedingly precarious, and this seems unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.

This incisive analysis of ANC power – as party, as government, as state – will appeal not only to political scientists but to all who take a keen interest in current affairs.

A companion volume to the highly successful Field Guide to the Battlefields of South Africa, this features the pivotal sieges that characterised the Cape Frontier, Anglo-Zulu, Basotho and Anglo-Boer wars in one volume.

Accounts of 17 sieges over the last two centuries explore in detail the historical context in which they occurred, the day-to-day military actions that sustained the investments and the conditions both soldiers and civilians faced while defending their territory against a hostile force. The siege descriptions are animated by maps and a variety of information boxes and human-interest stories, gleaned from diaries, letters and eye-witness accounts, while longer features focus on the practical aspects of siege warfare, such as artillery, medicine, food, and the psychological effects of besiegement. The book also provides practical information for visitors who wish to explore these historical sites.

A fascinating read that will appeal to anyone interested in the volatile history of the country – armchair historians and travellers alike.

In 1993 South Africa state president F.W. de Klerk and African National Congress (ANC) leader Nelson Mandela were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize ‘for their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime’. Yet, while both deserved the plaudits they received for entering the negotiations that led to the end of apartheid, the four years of negotiations preceding the April 1994 elections, known as the transition era, were not ‘peaceful’: they were the bloodiest of the entire apartheid era, with an estimated 14,000 deaths attributed to politically related violence.

This book studies, for the first time, the conflicts between the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party that took place in South Africa’s industrial heartland surrounding Johannesburg. Exploring these events through the perceptions and memories of combatants and non-combatants from war-torn areas, along with security force members, politicians and violence monitors, offers new possibilities for understanding South Africa’s turbulent transition.

Challenging the prevailing narrative which attributes the bulk of the violence to a joint state security force and IFP assault against ANC supporters, the author argues for a more expansive approach that incorporates the aggression of ANC militants, the intersection between criminal and political violence, and especially clashes between groups aligned with the ANC.

Die kranige sportman Alwyn Uys word in die fleur van sy lewe verlam. Ten spyte van dié verlies en ander terugslae bly Alwyn se gees ontembaar.

Hy besluit om sy lewe ten volle te leef: Hy word onder andere die eerste parapleeg ooit wat van Robbeneiland na Bloubergstrand swem. Ongeskonde is Alwyn se openhartige vertelling van sy worsteling en hoe hy met genade van Bo besluit het om uit te styg bo sy beperkinge.

Sy eerlike verhaal sal jou inspireer om jou eie uitdagings aan te pak en te oorkom.

Ilana and Martin Gerschlowitz are an ordinary middle-class South African family – young, newly married with bright, promising futures. Ilana falls pregnant and gives birth to David, a happy, healthy baby boy. At 10 months old, David suffers recurring ear infections, and at 11 months old a terrible fever sends him to hospital. David’s behaviour abruptly changes – he no longer looks at his parents, his motor and budding language skills disappear, and the light in his eyes dims. It is the beginning of a journey with autism that few parents would ever want to encounter, and yet a staggering number of children are now diagnosed with autism, and the number of diagnoses rises every year.

Ilana and Martin work tirelessly to understand David’s autism diagnosis, and to search for ways to treat their son. The couple arrange an international autism conference, open a treatment centre for autistic children, and begin outreach programs for underprivileged families dealing with autism.

Ilana falls pregnant again and their third son, Aaron, develops normally. And then the unthinkable happens – at 16 months Aaron develops ear infections and they decide to insert grommets. Immediately after the procedure, they realise that Aaron is not behaving in his usual manner. Within days, it becomes clear that Aaron, too, has developed autism, and their journey begins afresh. Armed with the knowledge gained from years of treating David, the couple set about ensuring that Aaron’s condition is treated swiftly and carefully.

"I wanted to write this book before I forgot the finer details. As strange as that may sound, you can forget these things, and it is probably healthier to do so. You can visit the depths of hell – just don’t hang around there for too long." – Gérard Labuschagne

In this gripping – and sometimes terrifying – account, former South African Police Service (SAPS) head profiler Dr Gérard Labuschagne, successor to the legendary Micki Pistorius, recalls some of the 110 murder series and countless other bizarre crimes he analysed during his career. An expert on serial murder and rape cases, Labuschagne saw it all in his fourteen and a half years in the SAPS. He walks the reader through the first crime scene he ever attended, his arrest of the Muldersdrift serial rapist, his experience as the head of the task team mandated to catch the Quarry serial murderer, his involvement with the Brighton Beach axe murders, and more. Despite often being stymied by a lack of resources, office politics and political interference, Labuschagne and his team were always determined to get their man – or woman, as in the Womb Raider case.

The Profiler Diaries is a fascinating – and often hair-raising – glimpse into what it was like to be a profiler in the world’s busiest profiling unit.

With its impressive tradition of left politics, South Africa was the hope of the world. At the heart of post-apartheid politics was a revolutionary nationalist ANC, the oldest Communist Party in Africa, the SACP, and one of the most militant labour union federations in the world, COSATU. Yet South Africa’s democracy-making project has gone horribly wrong.

This has been happening over three decades through deep globalisation and inordinate power given to business to prevail over everything. A criminalised market democracy, predicated on an unviable society of deepening inequality, climate disasters and eroding state capacity, is now moving further to the extreme right. These conjuncturally situated writings highlight the pushback against the neoliberal turn, Zumafication, emergent neofascism, the fraud of the National Democratic Revolution and the normalisation of the dangerous climate contradiction. This collection contributes to explaining the degeneration of national liberation politics and the polycrisis of post-apartheid democracy.

Globally and within South Africa, old left politics (revolutionary nationalist, Marxist-Leninist, Trotskyist and social democratic) has failed. The world historical defeats of Soviet socialism, social democracy and revolutionary nationalism also became South African leftism defeats. These writings, grounded in a consistent transformative intellectual praxis and against the grain of defeat, affirm the necessity of left renewal. Its praxis-centred arguments document 27 years of working with grassroots forces and the global left to reconstruct the left imaginary beyond the traditional left binary of reform versus revolution.

The experimental epistemology at work in these writings provides critical decolonial resources for a new transformative leftism politics, informed by an ethics of care, while pointing to new horizons for further elaboration.

The winner of the 2017 Ernest Cole Award is Daylin Paul for his project, Broken Land. The project explores the other side of power. Set in Mpumalanga, home of 46% of South Africa's arable soil, it is also the area where nine power-burning coal stations are active. Paul's work explores the direct impact of fuel-burning coal stations on the local economy, population, farming community and, more broadly, climate change. As Paul says, "These power stations, while providing electricity for an energy-desperate South Africa, also have a devastating and lasting impact on the environment and the health of local people. Mining licences granted conditionally by the South African government are meant to safeguard the ecology and allow local people to benefit from the mineral wealth of the land. But it is clear that these conditions are not being followed and that the health and economic well-being of both the land and its people are being jeopardised. Vast tracts of fertile, arable land are being ripped up, the landscape scarred with the black pits of coal mines while coal-burning power stations are one of the biggest greenhouse gas emitters in the world." The polluting power stations not only contribute to global climate change but, through toxic sulphur effluents, also to the poisoning of scarce water supplies for a range of communities who are dependent on these for their survival. The area has in recent years also been hit by devastating droughts. The power dynamics in the area have in recent times been drawn into the national political arena. The former Glencore coal mines, taken over by Optimum Coal Holdings Limited, a conglomerate owned by the Gupta family, are embroiled in corruption and nepotism scandals that are affecting the very highest levels of the South African government. The aim of Paul's project as he says is "to look at both the macro issues like pollution, poverty and climate change while also personalising the experience of the local people who are on the front lines of this crisis and provide us with a glimpse of what the future could be like for the country and indeed the SADC region."

An asteroid the size of Table Mountain crashed into what was to become South Africa over 2 billion years ago, marking the spot. The country’s history since then has always been robust and full of energy. This book takes you in record time from that moment, when the earth’s richest gold reefs were shaped, to the advent of democracy in 1994, another event that stunned the world, and beyond. Along the way you will encounter some of the most ancient dinosaurs on record, the very first people on the planet, and the first cultures. You will see outsiders moving in to reshape history: hunters and gatherers, cultivators and herders, iron-workers from the north, and immigrants from Europe and Asia. They fought and made peace; they stumbled upon gold and diamonds; they rose to the heights of excellence and sank to the depths of oppression, until on one day they all queued as equals to elect a government. That is the story marked by dinosaurs, diamonds and democracy.

Canned lion hunting sprang to the world’s attention with the 2015 launch of the documentary, Blood Lions. This movie blew the cover off a brutal industry that has burgeoned in the last decade or so, operating largely under the radar of public concern.

In Cuddle Me Kill Me, veteran wildlife campaigner Richard Peirce reveals horrifying facts about the industry. He tells:

• The true story of two male lions rescued from breeding farms
• The exploitation and misery of these apex predators when they are bred in captivity
• How young cubs are removed from their mothers mere hours after birth
• How they are first used for petting by an adoring (and paying) public
• Their subsequent use for ‘walking with lions’ tourism
• And how, in the final stage of exploitation, they are served up in fenced enclosure for execution by canned hunters – or simply shot by breeders for the value of their carcass, a prized product in the East

Well researched by Peirce with the help of an undercover agent, and illustrated with photos taken along the way, this is a disturbing and passionate plea to end commercial captive lion breeding and the repurposing of wildlife to cater for human greed.

It started with a question about the blues: what makes the music of the downtrodden black man so alluring to white middle-class ears? And that’s where it gets interesting. Because blues is more than a musical genre: it’s a cultural phenomenon that spans several centuries on both sides of the Atlantic, from slavery to Black Lives Matter, from Jan van Riebeeck to Fees Must Fall, from Robert Johnson to Abdullah Ibrahim.

In Blues for the White Man, Fred de Vries looks for answers in America’s Deep South, drawing historical parallels with South Africa’s experience of colonialism, slavery, racism, civil war, segregation and protest. Travelling to Atlanta, Memphis, Nashville, New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta, De Vries speaks to musicians, Black Lives Matter activists and Trump supporters. He continues the conversation in South Africa, interviewing student protesters, white farmers and political thought-leaders to develop an understanding of white supremacy and black anger, white fear and black pain.

A fascinating, insightful journey through time and space, Blues for the White Man is a celebration of multiculturalism and a plea for white people to do some ‘second line dancing’ for a change.

This groundbreaking, multi-genre anthology answers the question: what did the literary landscape look like in South Africa at the start of the twenty-first century?

It documents a slice of this landscape by bringing together the writings of over twenty contributors through literary critique, personal essays and interviews. The book tells the story of the seismic shift that transformed national culture through poetry and is the first of its kind to explore the history and impact of poetry by Black women, in their own voices. It straddles disciplines: literary theory, feminism, history of the book and politics – thus decolonising literary culture.

Our Words, Our Worlds covers expansive reflections: from the international diplomacy-transforming poem, ‘I Have Come to Take You Home’ by Diana Ferrus, to the pioneering publisher duduzile zamantungwa mabaso; from the self-confessed closeted poet Sedica Davids, to the fiery unapologetic feminist Bandile Gumbi; from the world-renowned Malika Ndlovu, to the engineer and award-winning Nosipho Gumede; from the formidable foursome Feela Sistah, to feminist literary scholars V.M. Sisi Maqagi and Barbara Boswell. The collective contributions are a testimony to the power of creativity and centrality of poetry in a changing society.

This book is an assertion of Black women’s intellectual prowess and – as Gabeba Baderoon puts it – black women’s visions of ‘a world made whole by their presence’.

She knew she might lose her job as group treasurer, yet Cynthia Stimpel decided to blow the whistle anyway. She simply could not keep quiet about an irregular deal of R256 million at South African Airways on Dudu Myeni's watch. It was not an easy decision, but 'the right one'.

Cynthia was on a pilgrimage in France when she received word that a dodgy deal between BNP Capital and SAA was signed against her strict orders. She immediately sent a whistleblowing message to National Treasury and raised the alarm in an attempt to stop the deal. Although she succeeded in saving SAA millions she paid a high price for speaking the truth; She lost her job and her reputation. Yet her battle against Myeni and her fellow state capturers at the SAA was far from over. She still had to face Myeni in court and testify against her at the Zondo Commission.

This is a very personal state capture story that shows how one brave individual helped to stop the rot.

The re-emergence of debates on the decolonisation of knowledge has revived interest in the National Question, which began over a century ago and remains unresolved. Tensions that were suppressed and hidden in the past are now being openly debated. Despite this, the goal of one united nation living prosperously under a constitutional democracy remains elusive. This edited volume examines the way in which various strands of left thought have addressed the National Question, especially during the apartheid years, and goes on to discuss its relevance for South Africa today and in the future.

Instead of imposing a particular understanding of the National Question, the editors identified a number of political traditions and allowed contributors the freedom to define the question as they believed appropriate - in other words, to explain what they thought was the Unresolved National Question. This has resulted in a rich tapestry of interweaving perceptions.

The volume is structured in two parts. The first examines four foundational traditions - Marxism-Leninism (the Colonialism of a Special Type thesis); the Congress tradition; the Trotskyist tradition; and Africanism. The second part explores the various shifts in the debate from the 1960s onwards, and includes chapters on Afrikaner nationalism, ethnic issues, Black Consciousness, feminism, workerism and constitutionalism. The editors hope that by revisiting the debates not popularly known among the scholarly mainstream, this volume will become a catalyst for an enriched debate on our identity and our future.

On the night of 30 October 2002, eight bomb blasts tore through Soweto, leaving one woman dead and damaging vital infrastructure. The bombs were the work of a far-right white Afrikaner separatist group called the Boeremag, whose stated aim was to overthrow the ruling ANC government, rid the country of black people and reinstate a new Boer-administered republic. For months before the bombings, police had been investigating the terror group and had made several arrests. In December, after an intense cross-country manhunt, the perpetrators were finally caught. All in all, 23 men were arrested and charged with high treason after the police seized explosives, homemade pipe bombs, weapons and ammunition in arms caches hidden all over the country.

The trial began in May 2003 under tight security at the Palace of Justice in Pretoria. Over the next decade, in what became the longest and most expensive trial in the country’s history, details would emerge of a group driven by nationalism, racism, militancy and fear. The public would hear how a fanatical belief in the visions of a 19th-century Boer prophet named Siener van Rensburg culminated in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to assassinate former president Nelson Mandela and initiate a coup.

The High Treason Club is the story of the Boeremag, the investigation that brought them down and the subsequent trial, the first of its kind in democratic South Africa. Based on exclusive interviews, as well as thousands of pages of court transcripts and documentary evidence, this book elegantly unpacks a complex case and gives unprecedented insight into the various role-players and their motivations.

This is Durban curry, continued... a show which has been running since the 1860s, when the first indentured labourers came from India to work in the sugar cane plantations of then colonial Natal. They brought spices, and seeds, and recipes. And when inevitably, the influences and memories of the mother cuisine faded, Durban curry became its own thing.

Recognisably different from its roots: redder, hotter. More tomatoes, more chillis. But growing in its new homeground as it pleased. Varying from cook to cook, chef to chef. That's what we documented in 2014 in Durban Curry, So Much of Flavour. Now, in 2019, we find it's changing again.

Not the classics. They are timeless. But Durban curry is not set in stone. The point about this community dish which has become a national treasure is, precisely and imprecisely, that it has always moved and mutated with the times. It continues, as it did right from the beginning, to respond to new circumstances and needs.

And the point about our first investigation into what made it distinctive is that it was “just a taste". We wrote: “We know there is much more to tell, many more kitchens to visit, and dishes to discover."

Expansive transforms 250 episodes from the award-winning The Expansive podcast into 52 weekly provocations that will rewire how you think about possibility, influence, and personal transformation.

John Sanei and Erik Kruger have spent years challenging conventional wisdom across global stages, boardrooms, and bestselling books. Now, they’ve distilled their most powerful insights into essays that don’t just inform but instigate change.

Each piece is crafted to shake loose old thinking patterns and reveal blind spots you didn’t know you had about your life, leadership, and work.

This book operates at the intersection of strategy and soul, where ambition meets purpose. It’s for leaders and changemakers who are ready to transform not just their immediate world, but their entire approach to what’s possible. Whether used as a personal guide or as a powerful tool for weekly team reflections, each essay sparks conversations that matter.

Fifty-two opportunities for growth and advancement await you in these pages.

Are you ready to be expansive?

"Die resepte in hierdie boek het ek fyn uitgekies. Dit is kos wat ék sien as onthoukos."

Marinda se koskas maak voorsiening vir ontbyt, sop en voorgeregte, brood en beskuit, slaai, seekos, vleis, groente, pasta en bygeregte, nageregte, terte, koeke en ander soetigheid. Lipleklekker kos wat jy in ’n japtrap kan berei sonder fieterjasies of vreemde bestanddele. Die resepte is in eenvoudige taal geskryf vir elke dag se gebruik, vir elke kosliefhebber. Nou kan jy die gewilde aanbieder van Marinda Kook op VIA, se eerste kookboek geniet.

Die afgelope halfeeu het meer as 15 000 uitgawes van Beeld verskyn met derduisende stories in woord en beeld. Regdeur hierdie 50 jaar is ’n mantra in die redaksie: “Slaan die groot storie hard.” In Beeld 50 vertel dié geliefde koerant se joernaliste hoe hulle juis dit gedoen het deur die dekades en wat hulle steeds bybly van daardie ervaring. Die boek neem die leser op ’n reis deur van die grootste nuusgebeure sedert 1974 en weerspieël die geskakeerde leefwêreld van die Afrikaanse gemeenskap in die noorde van die land.

Beeld is die Suid-Afrikaanse dagblad wat al die meeste as die mooiste aangewys is, daarvan getuig die foto’s, voorblaaie, spotprente en grafika op dié blaaie. Tog is dit nie ’n beste-voetjie-voorsit-soort boek nie, want dis in die eerste plek joernaliste wie se stemme jy hier hoor. Op die ou end is die belangrikste element die leser.

Soos Pieter du Toit in 2014 as nuusredakteur gesê het: “Ons lojaliteit lê by die briefskrywer wat ons kapittel oor ’n onbesonne hoofberig, die intekenaar wat kla oor sy nat koerant op die grasperk en die leser wat dankie sê vir die nuwe Saterdag-Beeld.”

This is not a book about cricket. It is the story of a man who just happened to play cricket at the highest level.

Through Fire is at times a brutally honest and always fascinating work of introspection and critique that provides readers with unrestricted insight into the mind and heart of one of South Africa’s most interesting and charismatic national captains. There is the public persona of the tattooed, fashionable, mentally tough, immensely popular and yet at times, misunderstood Du Plessis. And then there is the authentic Faf.

Du Plessis reflects on his growth from being a youth with a questionable moral compass outside of cricket, to becoming a leader known for his integrity, values, honesty, and empathy for his teammates and country. He reflects on how influential leaders such as Gary Kirsten, Stephen Fleming, Mohammed Moosajee, Russell Domingo, Ottis Gibson, and MS Dhoni moulded him as a man who leads with grit, purpose, and a love of people. But he also explores destructive relationships, providing his perspective, in devastating detail, on his final years of international cricket. Neither the changing room nor the boardroom is ever off limits.

Through Fire is a no-holds-barred autobiography offering exceptional insight into the core being of an elite sports personality.

After forty years of entertaining and mesmerizing audiences with his effervescent dancing and bubbly stage personality, veteran performer and producer Alistair Izobell was the consummate professional and showman. A household name from his performances as a nine-year-old boy in District Six the musical, to his cover version hit in 1993 - Venus. With theatre performances in Kat and the Kings, The Buddy Holly Story, The Doo Wha Boys, co-writing Remembering the Lux and more, life was amazing for this creative. Producing show after show, leaving audiences with lifelong memories. Introducing new talent to the industry, nurturing existing talent, writing theme songs for soap operas and a song for an international Grammy award winning group. The sky was the limit. But it was all smoke and mirrors. There was darkness behind the spotlight.

Alistair never knew he was suffering from depression and the walls were closing in. The patriarchal system that we as a society have become accustomed to had come to bear with a bit of karma, after a massive betrayal in his life, and the cards came crashing down.

On the 13th September 2023 Alistair Izobell tried to take his life. It was all too much for him to carry on. Having survived suicide, he now had to face every good, bad and ugly reality, every decision, the trauma, and results of a life handed over to show business at a young age. The road to recovery and healing has and will be a long one. But when you want to heal and find your smile and freedom, nothing can stop you.

Broken to Heal is born from the sessions of therapy and wanting to be better. A book of anecdotes inviting the reader into the life and world of this performer we forgot was a normal child, husband, father, and friend. This book is aimed to let those who enjoy the work of performers think a little deeper about the enormous naked emotional journey creatives go through for them to enjoy the beauty of their art. But to remember that there is a real human being behind the curtains with the same life challenges we all carry. It is also a hand of hope to someone out there suffering from depression, to remind them that all is not lost, and there is help and kindness that you have access to.

There is medical help that you have at your disposal and that you are never alone in your darkness. Someone is waiting for you to say I need help. And more than anything, YOU BELONG HERE!

Bones and Bodies is a highly accessible account of the establishment of the scientific discipline of biological anthropology. Alan G Morris takes us back over the past century of anthropological discovery in South Africa and uncovers the stories of individual scientists and researchers who played a significant role in shaping perceptions of how peoples of southern Africa, both ancient and modern, came to be viewed and categorised both in the public imagination and the scientific literature.

Morris reveals how much of the earlier anthropological studies were tainted with the tarred brush of race science. He evaluates the works of famous anthropologists and archaeologists such as Raymond Dart, Thomas Dreyer, Matthew Drennan and Robert Broom, and demonstrates through a wide array of sources how they described their fossil discoveries through the prism of racist interpretation. Morris also shows how modern anthropology tried to rid itself of the stigma of these early racist accounts. In the 1960s and 1970s, Ronald Singer and Phillip Tobias introduced modern methods into the discipline that disputed much of what the public believed about race and human evolution.

In an age in which the authority of experts and empirical science is increasingly being questioned, this book shows the battle facing modern anthropology to acknowledge its racial past but also how its study of human variation remains an important field of enquiry at institutions of higher learning.

In Years of Fire and Ash: South African Poems of Decolonisation, fifty years of protest poetry are brought together in a single volume by literary critic and lecturer Dr Wamuwi Mbao. The animating impulse behind this collection of old and new voices is ‘decolonisation’, a term which has regained prominence over the last few years. It allows us to perceive how different South African poets have placed their work in the world, and how that work might relate to the struggle for radical social transformation. How, then, does decolonization look like in the world of South African poetry? This anthology is an attempt to answer that question.

The poems express the thoughts and experiences of poets who experienced Apartheid, but also of those who address current political realities. This collection includes established voices as well as prominent Emmanuel Taban is one of contemporary poets.

Eight-year-old Teko Modise didn’t mean to compete with his father, it was just that he was a soccer natural and everyone could see it. His father, in a fit of childlike jealously, kicked him out of the house, and when Teko tried to come back he kicked him out again. So little Teko made a plan. Every day he attended school as normal, and at night he slept out on the streets with other homeless children. This book is the true story of his rise to fame, to becoming ‘the General’, one of the best footballers South Africa has produced, and will allow readers to understand the story behind ‘the Curse’.

At the peak of his career the world seemed filled with Teko. His face was on every major billboard, TV advert and magazine cover in the country. Little boys from suburbs to townships everywhere were lining up at barbershops asking for The Teko haircut. With a house in Sandton and driving an Aston Martin, Modise was about to make history in the upcoming Soccer World Cup of 2010. He had gone beyond being football royalty, he became a super star. The tabloids have called him an abusive lover, a cheating ex-husband, a neglectful father and an alcoholic egotistical footballer. But beyond these headlines is a story about a boy who played his way out of poverty on talent alone.

Be inspired by this story of a young man with a resilient spirit who kept moving forward chasing his dreams, who not only survived, but made it, and made it big. The Teko Modise story is proof that anything is possible.