This is the story of a brave warrior and “a formidable tactician, a masterly politician and a brilliant orator”; a Xhosa Nkosi who destroyed a British Navy troopship that threatened to annihilate his nation in 1852; the story of how the attack was carried out by a few African black Xhosa people.

This is the story of a lone abalone diver who spent scores of hours investigating the wreck of HMS ‘Birkenhead’ between 1958 and 1988. This is the story how the irrefutable evidence of sabotage was found. This is the story of Britain´s mindless invasion into Xhosaland.

This is the lamentable story how one of the bravest African Royals was buried in a pauper´s hole on Robben Island; a disrespect and disgust to the Xhosa Kingdom in general and the amaRharhabe in particular.

Hans van Rensburg se magnetiese persoonlikheid en sy sterk teenkantingteen Suid-Afrika se deelname aan die Tweede Wêreldoorlog het Afrikaners só aangegryp dat die Ossewabrandwag (OB) binne drie jaar na sy stigting by die 300 000 lede gehad het.

In die vroeë 1930’s was Van Rensburg egter nog deel van die regering en het ’n blink politieke toekoms vir hom gewink. Hy was die jongste Justisiehoof voordat hy as die jongste administrateur van ’n provinsie aangestel is. Hy was ook ’n regsgeleerde, filosoof, taalkundige en taalstryder, bekwame burokaat, militaris, boer, wildjagter en hengelaar.

Sy lewensverhaal strek oor sewe dekades en hy was by al die belangrikste historiese gebeure van 20ste eeubetrokke-van die Anglo-Boereoorlog tot die apartheidsregering.Dit is ’n tydperk waartydens talle “ismes” hoogty gevier het: imperialisme, nasionalisme, nasionaal-sosialisme, kapitalisme, kommunisme en rassisme.

In die verlede is besprekings van Van Rensburg meestal beperk tot sy rol as OB-leier, terwyl hierdie boek ook gaan ondersoek instel na sy rol in die totstandkoming van die apartheidsbewind. Dit is minder bekend dat hy in die vroeë 1950’s as kommissaris van die Groepsgebiederade –’n ankerpunt van apartheidsbeleid –aangestel is.Sy konflik met die verantwoordelike minister, PW Botha, het tot sy bedanking gelei.

Van Rensburg worddikwels as ’n verbete Afrikaner-fascis beskryf, maar die werklikheid is meer kompleks. In vele opsigte was hy dalkeerder ’n gerieflike sondebok vir die Smuts-en Nasionale Party-regerings.

Imbokodo: Women Who Shape Us is a groundbreaking series of books which introduces you to the powerful stories of South African women who have all made their mark and cleared a path for women and girls. These books recognise, acknowledge and honour our heroines and elders from the past and the present. South African women are silent no more on the roles that we have played in advancing our lives as artists, storytellers, writers, politicians and educationists. The title 'Imbokodo' was been chosen as it is a Zulu word that means "rock" and is often used in the saying 'Wathint' Abafazi, Wathint' Imbokodo!', which means "You Strike a Women, You Strike a Rock!" These books were made possible with the support of Biblionef and funding from the National Arts Council. In 10 Extraordinary Leaders, Activists & Protesters you will read about women who fought against colonialism and oppression. Here are the stories of women heroes through history, whose stories are connected because of a shared passion for equality and justice.

Imbokodo: Women Who Shape Us is a groundbreaking series of books which introduces you to the powerful stories of South African women who have all made their mark and cleared a path for women and girls. These books recognise, acknowledge and honour our heroines and elders from the past and the present. South African women are silent no more on the roles that we have played in advancing our lives as artists, storytellers, writers, politicians and educationists. The title 'Imbokodo' was been chosen as it is a Zulu word that means "rock" and is often used in the saying 'Wathint' Abafazi, Wathint' Imbokodo!', which means "You Strike a Women, You Strike a Rock!" These books were made possible with the support of Biblionef and funding from the National Arts Council. In 10 Curious Inventors, Healers & Creators you will read about the women who shape our world through education, science and maths. You will read about women who became teachers, nurses, social workers, scientists and community workers, overcame obstacles and through their work fought for social change.

The richly anecdotal story of an extraordinary life – when baby Mamphela was born to teacher parents in the rural village of Kranspoort, few would have predicted that she would become not only a medical doctor, but an international leader and the founder of not one but two new political movements. As a young woman, Mamphela was instrumental in creating the ideology of Black Consciousness with her partner, Steve Biko. As an accomplished and well-off businesswoman who had reached the pinnacle of success, this year she felt compelled to start Agang SA , to provide South African voters with an alternative to the inept and increasingly corrupt ANC.

In this very readable autobiography, Mamphela Ramphele vividly describes her rural childhood, her extended family, her first loves and losses – after the death of her firstborn, she nearly lost her and Steve’s baby after his death by torture – and her subsequent successes in both politics and business.

She exposes what went on behind the scenes in the run-up to the launch of Agang SA, discusses her relationship with a number of prominent South Africans, including Helen Zille, and she shares her vision for a future South Africa of which we can all be proud.

In her much anticipated memoir, Sisonke Msimang writes about her exile childhood in Zambia and Kenya, young adulthood and college years in North America, and returning to South Africa in the euphoric 1990s. She reflects candidly on her discontent and disappointment with present-day South Africa but also on her experiences of family, romance, and motherhood, with the novelist’s talent for character and pathos.

Militant young comrades dance off the pages of the 1970s Lusaka she invokes, and the heady and naive days of just-democratic South Africa in the 1990s are as vividly painted. Her memoir is at heart a chronicle of a coming-of-age, and while well-known South African political figures appear in these pages, it is an intimate story, a testament to family bonds and sisterhood.

Sisonke Msimang is one of the most assured and celebrated voices commenting on the South African present – often humorously; sometimes deeply movingly – and this book launches her to an even broader audience.

The intimate and personal story behind the man who tried to kill Verwoerd but didn’t succeed.

“The raucous wail of sirens pierced the quiet Saturday afternoon, making me drop my book and rush outside to see what drama was taking place. A fleet of cars, their sirens screaming, roared along Oxford Road two hundred yards from our house. I stood on the lawn wondering what on earth it was because sirens were rarely heard near our home. I went back inside; the commotion was over. But within half an hour our telephone started ringing non-stop . . .”

9 April 1960 was the day that changed Susie Cazenove’s life – the day her father, David Pratt, shot the Prime Minister of South Africa, Dr Hendrik Verwoerd. Verwoerd, commonly known as the architect of apartheid, didn’t die, but Pratt’s family lived with the legacy of his action.

A chance encounter with the late David Rattray of Fugitive’s Drift led Cazenove to revisit the memories of that terrible day. With Rattray’s encouragement she put pen to paper to describe the extraordinary events of that day and its consequences. Part family memoir, part ode to the settlement of Johannesburg, Cazenove skilfully weaves her family history and the mood in South Africa in the 1950s and 60s as a background to what may have led her father, a farmer and gentle man, to commit a treasonous act.

This important book brings together the previously unpublished letters of three women, Lilian Ngoyi, Bessie Head and Dora Taylor. While Ngoyi, Head and the lesser-known Taylor each made vital and perhaps under-appreciated contributions to the southern African struggle, these letters record their ordinary, domestic lives as well as touching on the socio-political struggles which they conducted from within their homes.

Bessie Head was a writer of novels, short stories and social history, and towards the end of her life was celebrated internationally. Dora Taylor, a white woman who was an early member of the Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM), was also a writer, but her longer work, was not published until after her death and she is still not a widely known public figure. Lilian Ngoyi was an ANC leader and one of the organisers of the 1956 Women’s March to the Union Buildings in Pretoria and she was repeatedly arrested for her involvement in trade union and political matters.

Each woman writes to one trusted friend or relative. Ngoyi, Head and Taylor did not know each other but are linked by their political sympathies, their comparable vocations and practices, and by the fact that each had to endure her own version of exile as a result of her activities. These letters record all three writers’ joys and sorrows as they struggled to live principled lives in adversity. As well as giving access to the thoughts of three remarkable women letter-writers, this timely book presents letters as literary artefacts, not just sources of information and opinion. It invites readers to taste the intriguing and sometimes disturbing pleasures of reading personal letters.

As National Director of Public Prosecutions from 2005 until 2007, Advocate Vusi Pikoli pursued criminal charges against the current President of South Africa Jacob Zuma and the convicted former National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi. It was his dogged determination to bring the country's top cop to account that ultimately saw Pikoli removed from office and a public inquiry into his suspension held. My Second Initiation traces Pikoli's journey from his first graduation to manhood in the hills of the Eastern Cape, to his second in the corridors of power in government. Pikoli has a deeply ingrained loyalty to the Constitution of the country and a keenly developed sense of justice, cultivated on the politically aware streets and rugby fields of New Brighton township. He recounts how he fled with his ANC unit into exile and spent fourteen years away from his home and his family, suffering the loss of a child and a man he considered a brother.

After working closely with the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation in shaping and writing his memoir, author Hassen Ebrahim and Jacana Media are proud to publish this important record of a life that was spent in service to South Africa.

Writes Mac Maharaj in his foreword in the book: “Hassen Ebrahim is one of those many seldom heard of foot soldiers of the 1976 generation who joined the underground and was linked to the ANC structures operating from Botswana. He has been at the coalface of so many facets of South Africa’s march to freedom. He was there during the times when involvement in the struggle against apartheid carried the risk of death; he was involved in our negotiated transition to democracy; he was the chief executive of the elected Constitutional Assembly which wrote and adopted our Constitution; thereafter and until 2007 he served in the Department of Justice.”

From Marabastad to Mogadishu: The Journey of an ANC Soldier chronicles an all-too familiar story of those unsung cadres from the struggle we’ve forgotten to honour for their sacrifices. Those foot soldiers do not feature in our collective memory, they do not find themselves or their stories recorded in the pages of history books, and they are not remembered for their selfless acts of bravery.

The bravery and sacrifice of the ordinary teenager who dropped out of school, the cadre who risked life and limb, and the freedom fighter who exiled himself or herself to countries far and wide must be given a chance to live on book pages, find expression on film reels and all other mediums of historic memory collection.

From Marabastad to Mogadishu: The Journey of an ANC Soldier signals the resolve by the author, his peers, Jacana Media and support organisations such as the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation to bring the ordinary cadre’s story to the fore, to acknowledge his or her sacrifices, and to recognise their contribution to South Africa’s democracy.

Hermann Giliomee, top historian, is seen as the world expert on the history of the Afrikaners. This book presents the essence of his previous, longer academic work in readable language. Many controversial aspects of South Africa’s past and the role therein of the group of people who in time would refer to themselves as “Afrikaners” are told in colour and flavour in story form, leaving readers with a fresh, sometimes challenging perspective on our past .

The policy of scorched earth followed by the British forces during the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902, as well as the concentration camps in which the Boer women and children were placed, led to bitter memories and trauma that haunted Afrikaners and other inhabitants of South Africa alike for many years. In this newly revised edition a group of eminent historians take a fresh and sober look, with the perspective brought about by a hundred years, at this most controversial aspect of the war.

Danksy die 30 000 koerante wat die afgelope eeu ses dae per week uitgegee is, is Die Burger vandag ’n huishoudelike naam. Die boek diep van die merkwaardigste gebeure, groot en klein, op wat sy joernaliste beleef het – van die Groot Griep en die twee wêreldoorloë tot Chris Barnard se eerste hartoorplanting en Nelson Mandela se afsterwe in 2013.

Skandes en skandale, natuurrampe, persoonlikhede in die nuus, belangrike sportmomente – die boek is nie net ’n belangrike optekening nie, maar het ook groot nostalgiewaarde. Die “onthou jy nog?”-faktor word versterk deur hope foto’s én spotprente.

Enkele hoogtepunte:

• Lindie Koorts skryf oor DF Malan, eerste redakteur
• Dana Snyman ondersoek die oorsprong van DJ Opperman se bekende gedig, Klara Majola – ’n Burger-berig in 1950
• Johann Maarman deel sy indrukke van Jakes Gerwel
• Leopold Scholtz beskryf die val van die Berlynse Muur
• Francois Verster vertel van Die Burger se spotprent-tekenaars – DC Boonzaaier, TO Honiball en Fred Mouton
• Bun Booyens was in Kazakstan vir Mark Shuttleworth se reis as eerste ruimtetoeris in 2002

Patriots & Parasites, completed just days before Smuts’s unexpected death in 2016, is her account of the momentous period known as the Transition Era, through the lens of her 25-year career as a key opposition MP and a respected legislator.

With ambitious breadth and rare insight, she examines:

• The arduous but exhilarating work of writing the Constitution and the Bill of Rights
• The great experiment in catharsis that was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
• The reinvigoration of racial polarisation under the Mbeki administration, and the slow burn of resentment that is coming to a head among the next generation (as manifested in the #RhodesMustFall campaign)
• The entrenchment of cronyism under Zuma, and the fight to protect the crucial balance of accountability enshrined in the freedom of the media and the independence of the judiciary

Goeiemôre, mnr Mandela vertel die uitsonderlike verhaal van hoe Zelda la Grange se lewe, oortuigings en vooroordele omvergewerp word deur die grootste staatsman van ons tyd.

Dit volg die ongelooflike lewenspad van ’n verskrikte tikster in haar vroeë twintigs wat gekies word as Nelson Mandela se lojaalste steunpilaar en haar loopbaan daaraan wy om reisgenoot en versorger te word van die man wat sy ‘Khulu’ noem.

Hierdie boek wentel om liefde en tweede kanse. Dit sal jou lewe raak en jou laat glo elkeen van ons, ongeag wie ons is en wat ons gedoen het, het die mag om te verander.

Good Morning, Mr Mandela tells the extraordinary story of how Zelda la Grange’s life, beliefs and prejudices were transformed by the greatest statesman of our time.

It is the incredible journey of an awkward, terrified young typist in her twenties who was chosen to become Nelson Mandela’s most loyal servant, spending the greater part of her adult working life travelling with and caring for the man she would come to call ‘Khulu’.

This is a book about love and second chances. It will touch your life and make you believe that every one of us, no matter who we are or what we have done, has the power to change.

Unrecognised, ignored and forgotten. The Forgotten Scientist: The Story of Saul Sithole is the untold story of a pioneering black scientist who made a great contribution to the fields of anthropology and ornithology in South Africa. Saul Sithole was so committed to his craft that even the weight of apartheid did not stop him from giving 62 years of his life to the scientific world of birds and fossils. Saul never received the official recognition he deserved - until now. This book validates his contribution, sharing his life's work and laying out a story that will inspire future generations of scientists. This book would not have been possible without the support of Biblionef and funding from the National Heritage Council.

A magistrate put Glenn Agliotti among the ‘snitches, pimps, rats who would sell their soul to evade a long prison term’. The press called him a drug trafficker and a drug dealer. He was. He’d admitted to these crimes and signed a plea bargain to blow the whistle on an associate. He was also known as the Landlord, which made him sound like a mafia boss.

He was too a facilitator between those in high places, think Jackie Selebi, and businessmen on the make, think Brett Kebble. He was known as a fixer, the go-to guy who commanded fees of R100 million to organise connections.

This is the story of the man who did business in coffee shops and met associates in car parks and underground garages. It is the story of the man who bought shoes for the national commissioner of police. The man accused of the murder of Brett Kebble. This is the story of Glenn Agliotti, one of Johannesburg’s sons of the underworld.

In The Dark With My Dress On Fire is the remarkable life story of Blanche La Guma, a South African woman who dedicated her life to ending apartheid through her various roles as professional nurse, wife and mother, and underground Communist activist.

Born into a poor, working-class coloured family in Cape Town, Blanche met her future husband, the novelist Alex La Guma, while training as a nurse-midwife in the early 1950s. Together they fought apartheid at great personal risk before continuing the struggle in exile in London and Havana, Cuba.

Harassed, banned, and imprisoned in solitary confinement for her political convictions, Blanche worked as a nurse-midwife in poor black communities on the Cape Flats. With Alex constantly detained or under house arrest, she was the family’s only breadwinner, a role she would continue throughout their life together. When Blanche was not working, visiting her husband in prison, or protecting their two young sons Eugene and Barto from harassment by the security police, she met secretly at night with fellow anti-apartheid Communists. As a young nurse she led the fight against “nursing apartheid” in Cape Town and she provided safe houses for anti-apartheid leaders such as Walter Sisulu and Govan Mbeki.

Forced into exile with her family in 1966, Blanche continued her struggle for justice in London, advocating for better maternal care in a large urban hospital and managing a Soviet Union publications office. When Alex was called to Havana, Cuba, in 1978 as chief representative of the African National Congress (ANC) in the Caribbean, she joined him as a full partner, which included their mentoring of ANC students sent to Cuba after the 1976 Soweto Uprising. Her story provides a rare first-hand account of life as a South African in Fidel Castro’s Cuba until Alex’s death by heart attack in 1985.

Told vividly, passionately, and at times humorously, In the Dark with My Dress on Fire is a compelling account of Blanche La Guma’s struggle against apartheid on three continents. It’s the story of a courageous woman who paid dearly for her commitments yet returned with dignity to a free and democratic South Africa.

This book is an account of Paul O'Sullivan's role in helping to not only nail South Africa's most powerful policeman, but also the world's top cop. It is based on thousands of pages of emails, statements, affidavits, letters, press reports, court records and transcripts as well as interviews with O'Sullivan himself. This version provides a perspective from his point of view as a key player in the saga. While O'Sullivan's name consistently appears in almost every key breaking story around the Selebi matter, his role, for whatever reason, has been played down.

The Jackie Selebi story, and the satellite narratives that orbited it, is a truly remarkable chronicle that requires commitment and stamina to grasp fully. There is so much detail, so much subterfuge, lying, dishonesty and cover-up by Selebi and his cronies that it is extremely challenging and almost impossible to pick out one comprehensive, linear thread. The drama played itself out in different layers and strata of South African society, sometimes simultaneously and often in an apparently unrelated fashion. The characters that populate the saga, apart from Jackie Selebi, include the then president of the country, his political rival, myriad crooked, corrupt businessmen, a gallery of rotten, very senior rogue cops, a phalanx of undercover intelligence operatives, two- bit hired guns, scrap metal dealers, drug and human traffickers, international criminal syndicates and a cast of thousands of common-or-garden-variety petty thugs and criminals.

"Sounds like a movie," say most of those who have asked about this project. Yes, but what is startling and disturbing is that this is no fairy-tale. Those of us who have become accustomed to the commodification of crime as "entertainment" in popular television series have this need to make sense of it by blurring fiction with chilling reality.

Paul O'Sullivan is no suave James Bond in a tuxedo, equipped with special equipment, downing his martini surrounded by a bevy of women. When dealing with criminals he can be abrasive, brusque and uncompromising. But who wouldn't be in a world that is populated with real thugs and dangerous killers, people who kill, maim and disrupt law and order and destabilise the country? These are sociopaths and psychopaths who do not care how much harm they cause as they go about their "business". So, what drove or drives O'Sullivan? Revenge? A thirst for justice? It's simple really. Paul O'Sullivan hates criminals and low-lifes like dogs hate flies. His long career in international law enforcement has equipped him with the intellectual and physical tools to deal with the most canny and violent of criminals.

He enjoys hunting them down and, like the radioactive bite that imbues Spiderman with special powers, criminals provide O'Sullivan with an energy and a stamina that seems to grow in proportion to the challenges they present him. His work, he says, is far from done. He is presently attempting to ensure that Czech-born fugitive, Radovan Krejcir, is extradited to his home country to face numerous charges.

In his memoir, Jaki Seroke shares the joys and the sorrows of his life, starting with his childhood in Alex, where he is born as ‘a poor mother’s son’. He recalls the political battles among the various Africanist groupings, his incarceration on the Island and his later work at Skotaville Press, as publisher and poet.

After 1994, having decided that parliamentary politics were not for him, he joined the corporate sector and committed to a new kind of struggle.

Unrecognised, ignored and forgotten. The Forgotten Scientist: The Story of Saul Sithole is the untold story of a pioneering black scientist who made a great contribution to the fields of anthropology and ornithology in South Africa. Saul Sithole was so committed to his craft that even the weight of apartheid did not stop him from giving 62 years of his life to the scientific world of birds and fossils. Saul never received the official recognition he deserved - until now. This book validates his contribution, sharing his life's work and laying out a story that will inspire future generations of scientists. This book would not have been possible without the support of Biblionef and funding from the National Heritage Council.

Unrecognised, ignored and forgotten. The Forgotten Scientist: The Story of Saul Sithole is the untold story of a pioneering black scientist who made a great contribution to the fields of anthropology and ornithology in South Africa. Saul Sithole was so committed to his craft that even the weight of apartheid did not stop him from giving 62 years of his life to the scientific world of birds and fossils. Saul never received the official recognition he deserved - until now. This book validates his contribution, sharing his life's work and laying out a story that will inspire future generations of scientists. This book would not have been possible without the support of Biblionef and funding from the National Heritage Council.

Unrecognised, ignored and forgotten. The Forgotten Scientist: The Story of Saul Sithole is the untold story of a pioneering black scientist who made a great contribution to the fields of anthropology and ornithology in South Africa. Saul Sithole was so committed to his craft that even the weight of apartheid did not stop him from giving 62 years of his life to the scientific world of birds and fossils. Saul never received the official recognition he deserved - until now. This book validates his contribution, sharing his life's work and laying out a story that will inspire future generations of scientists. This book would not have been possible without the support of Biblionef and funding from the National Heritage Council.