Systemic racism and sexism caused one of South Africa’s most important writers to disappear from public consciousness. Is it possible to justly restore her historical presence?

Regina Gelana Twala, a Black South African woman who died in 1968 in Swaziland (now Eswatini), was an extraordinarily prolific writer of books, columns, articles, and letters. Yet today Twala’s name is largely unknown. Her literary achievements are forgotten. Her books are unpublished. Her letters languish in the dusty study of a deceased South African academic. Her articles are buried in discontinued publications. Joel Cabrita argues that Twala’s posthumous obscurity has not developed accidentally as she exposes the ways prejudices around race and gender blocked Black African women like Twala from establishing themselves as successful writers.

Drawing upon Twala’s family papers, interviews, newspapers, and archival records from Pretoria, Uppsala, and Los Angeles, Cabrita argues that an entire cast of characters—censorious editors, territorial White academics, apartheid officials, and male African politicians whose politics were at odds with her own—conspired to erase Twala’s legacy. Through her unique documentary output, Twala marked herself as a radical voice on issues of gender, race, and class. The literary gatekeepers of the racist and sexist society of twentieth-century southern Africa clamped down by literally writing her out of the region’s history.

Written Out also scrutinizes the troubled racial politics of African history as a discipline that has been historically dominated by White academics, a situation that many people within the field are now examining critically. Inspired by this recent movement, Cabrita interrogates what it means for her —a White historian based in the Northern Hemisphere—to tell the story of a Black African woman. Far from a laudable “recovery” of an important lost figure, Cabrita acknowledges that her biography inevitably reproduces old dynamics of White scholarly privilege and dominance. Cabrita’s narration of Twala’s career resurrects it but also reminds us that Twala, tragically, is still not the author of her own life story.

Nearly three decades after the dawn of democracy, South Africa has remained a country of ‘two agricultures’. On the one hand we have a subsistence, primarily non-commercial, black farming segment. On the other hand, however, we have a predominantly commercial and white farming sector that is well-resourced and has access to domestic and international trade networks.

These disparities can be traced back to South Africa’s painful history where, for decades, black farmers were on the margins of government support and also experienced land dispossession and livestock plunder.

A Country of Two Agricultures focuses less on history and more on the present and the future, explaining why these disparities have persisted in the democratic era, and what it will take to overcome them. It aims to contribute to a better understanding of the variety of agricultural forces, taking into account both questions of domestic political economy and external factors, as well as to bring to light new risks and opportunities.

Wandile Sihlobo offers insights into the role of agriculture in the South African economy from an agricultural economy perspective, and provides political economy insights that are rooted in the experiences of farming communities on the ground and right through the value chain.

Beyond insights on the realities this book offers the government, the private sector, and anyone interested in the betterment of the South African economy, tools to grapple with this duality, and proposes a framework for bolstering the black farming segment for growth and competitiveness – and ultimately food security.

In 1987–1988 the dusty Angolan town of Cuito Cuanavale was the backdrop for the final battles of the Border War. Ever since the war ended, the fighting around Cuito has been the subject of a fierce public debate over who actually won the war.

While the leadership of the former South African Defence Force (SADF) claims it was never defeated, the supporters of the Angolan MPLA government, Cuba and SWAPO insist that the SADF was vanquished on the battlefield. They contend that the SADF wanted to overrun Cuito Cuanavale and use it as a springboard for an advance on Luanda.

But was Cuito Cuanavale ever really an objective of the SADF? Leopold Scholtz tackles this question by examining recently declassified documents in the SANDF archives, exploring the strategic and tactical decisions that shaped the six main battles, from the SADF’s stunning tactical success on the Lomba River to the grinding struggle for the Tumpo Triangle.

His incisive analysis untangles what happens when war, politics and propaganda become entwined.

Few people have courted as much controversy or evoked such strong and divergent emotions as Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. Adored by some, abhorred by others, she bears a name famous throughout the world, yet not many people know the woman behind the headlines, myths and controversies, or the details of the fascinating story that is her life. This biography reveals the enigma that is Winnie Mandela, by exploring both her personal and political life.

The reader is given a rare glimpse into Winnie's strict yet happy rural upbringing, where the foundations were laid for her faith, compassion and indomitable resolve. As a young social worker in 1950s Johannesburg, her beauty, style and character captivated the political activist and Tembu prince, Nelson Mandela. Together, they personified the rising aspirations and political awakening of their people, and, in so doing, inspired a nation. Through her fierce determination and dauntless courage, she survived her husband's imprisonment, continuous harassment by the security police, banishment to a small Free State town, betrayal by friends and allies, and more than a year in solitary confinement – all the while keeping the struggle flame alight and the name of Nelson Mandela alive.

A sensitive and balanced portrayal, the title nevertheless thoroughly investigates and honestly examines the controversies that have dogged Winnie Mandela in recent years - the allegations of kidnapping and murder, her divorce from Mandela, and the current charges of fraud.

South Africa is facing an extraordinary ‘polycrisis’. The dimensions of this crisis include an energy collapse; a failing rail network; weak education outcomes; an interrupted water supply; and the effects of decades of endemic corruption that have brought much of government to a halt.

But the country also has incredible assets: a wealth of sought-after minerals; an enviable Constitution that protects rights and advocates social inclusion; an advanced financial and services sector; thriving agricultural and auto industries that compete with the best in the world; a prosecution service that is rapidly rebuilding; and, most of all, strong-willed people determined to make life better through hard work, entrepreneurship and hustling.

The choice is stark: we either build on the positives and take the country forward or we will be overwhelmed by the negatives and end up as another Zimbabwe or Venezuela. We have the people, the policies and the resources. What is missing is the political will to make the difficult choices that will save South Africa from disaster.

This book takes you on a journey that ends with one of three possible future scenarios: the Good, the Bad or the Ugly. Compiled by The Brenthurst Foundation and In Transformation Initiative, and workshopped with high-powered leaders in business and politics, the scenarios have stimulated intense public interest as the country grapples with its mounting problems.

The good news is that there is a clear road towards a positive future. It will take courageous leadership and smart thinking to get there, but the ‘Good’ scenario is tantalisingly within grasp.

For nearly three decades, the ANC has held South Africa’s politics in an iron grip. With the party seemingly at war with itself and President Ramaphosa battling to rein in corrupt cadres, Ralph Mathekga predicts the ANC will fall below the critical 50 per cent threshold before the end of the decade.

The decline of the ANC could bring political reform, but also uncertainty.

If the ANC loses power, who will be in charge? Who or what will come after the ANC, and how will this affect South Africa?

President Cyril Ramaphosa is South Africa's fifth post-apartheid president. He first came to prominence in the 1980s as the founder of the National Union of Mineworkers. When Nelson Mandela was released from prison in February 1990, Ramaphosa was at the head of the reception committee that greeted him. Chosen as secretary general of the African National Congress in 1991, Ramaphosa led the ANC's team in negotiating the country's post-apartheid constitution. Thwarted in his ambition to succeed Mandela, he exchanged political leadership for commerce, ultimately becoming one of the country's wealthiest businessmen, a breeder of exotic cattle, and a philanthropist.

This fully revised and extended edition charts Ramaphosa's early life and education, and his career in trade unionism - including the 1987 21-day miners' strike when he committed the union to the wider liberation struggle - politics, and constitution-building. Extensive new chapters explore his contribution to the National Planning Commission, the effects of the Marikana massacre on his political prospects, and the real story behind his rise to the deputy presidency of the country in 2014. They set out the constraints Ramaphosa faced as Jacob Zuma's deputy, and explain how he ultimately triumphed in the election of the ANC's new president in 2017. The book concludes with an analysis of the challenges Ramaphosa faces as the country's fifth post-apartheid president.

Based on numerous personal conversations with Ramaphosa over the past decade, and on rich interviews with many of the subject's friends and contemporaries, this new biography offers a frank appraisal of one of South Africa's most enigmatic political figures.

Slagtersnek is een van die bekendste name in ons geskiedenis. Met sy grusame assosiasie was dit ‘n magtige propagandamiddel in die politieke ontwikkeling van die Afrikaner. Juis hierdeur het dit egter al gou ‘n volksmite geword waarna herondersoek dringend noodsaaklik geword het. Dit is wat dr. Heese in hierdie boek doen.

Deur deeglike navorsing van die voor- en nageslag van almal wat daarby betrokke was, vorm hy ‘n helder beeld van wat werklik plaasgevind het. Hy toon oortuigend aan dat die Slagtersnek-opstand verkeerd vertolk is. Daar is helde gesien waar geen helde was nie, en dit was juis die bekampers van die opstandelinge, asook die neutrales, wat later die Afrikaner volksbewussyn tydens die Groot Trek bevorder het.

Heese skilder talle kleurryke figure: die bywoners, die ryk patriarge, die sukkelende swerwers, die dwarstrekkers, skoolmeesters en nie-blanke bediendes. Met hierdie boek word ‘n belangrike en oorspronklike bydrae tot ons geskiedenis gemaak.

Die Herero-opstand 1904–1907 is ’n heruitgawe van ’n boek wat ses keer tussen 1976 en 1979 deur HAUM gepubliseer is. Die lotgevalle van die Hererovolk word in hierdie boek geskets, ’n stuk geskiedenis wat ’n sentrale plek in Namibie se kleurryke geskiedenis beklee. Die opstand van die Herero’s in 1904 teen Duitse koloniale gesag kan beskou word as die enkele gebeurtenis wat die gebied se volksverhoudinge die ingrypendste verander het. Die Herero-opstand 1904–1907 vertel van die geleidelike opbou na die konflik, die skielike uitbarsting van geweld en die tragiese afloop vir die Herero’s toe duisende verhonger het en hulle grond en politieke seggenskap verloor het.

Die tweede deel van die reeks Imperiale Somer beskryf die einde van die Anglo-Boereoorlog, en die beleid van rekonstruksie en verengelsing wat hierna onder lord Milner in die twee ‘nuwe kolonies’, Transvaal en die Oranjerivierkolonie (Oranje-Vrystaat), aangepak is.

Dié tydperk word deur Karel Schoeman beskou as die “hoogtepunt van die hele Imperiale gedagte” wat uiteindelik met die uitbreek van die Eerste Wêreldoorlog sou eindig. Die klem val egter nie op die politieke besluite en ontwikkelinge nie, maar op persoonlikhede.

Talle anekdotes en klein kameebeskrywings maak van Rekonstruksie ’n besonder interessante leeservaring.

This is the life story of a South African political detainee who underwent 104 days of solitary confinement under Section 29 of the draconian apartheid-era Terrorism Act before being brought to trial with 13 other political activists in what became known as the "Yengeni Trial".

Gertrude Fester begins her story with her childhood and young adult life in Cape Town until she becomes politically active in the city's progressive women's organisation before focusing on her above-ground and underground work for the liberation struggle that led to her detention in the second half of the 1980s.

It is in her depictions of her recollections of the daily experiences of solitary confinement and use of poetry written during this period that Gertrude takes the reader through the physically and emotionally draining experience of solitary confinement in apartheid South Africa during the height of repression and resistance.

Over the past 20 years the global political economy has experienced its most profound shifts since the onset of the industrial revolution. In South Africa and the World, Mills Soko reflects on some of the salient issues that have pervaded public discourse during this time, analysing them within the context of the contemporary South African political economy and of the country’s position in the world.

Arranged thematically, the essays were all written during a defining period in recent history, a period that has witnessed, among others, the accession of China to the WTO, the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US, the invention of the iPad, the birth of Facebook, the 2008/9 global financial crisis, Brexit and the global coronavirus pandemic which began at the end of 2019. The turbulent multipolar world demands visionary political and economic leadership, supported by institutions well attuned to contemporary conditions. Such leadership is in short supply. Nor is the existing institutional architecture sufficiently equipped to deal with a complex array of economic, social, environmental, technological and demographic challenges.

Mills Soko highlights what has not worked in terms of politics, leadership, foreign policy, the economy, the African development trajectory, corporate ethics, international trade, global governance, and the thread which underlies all these issues – the importance of strong, decisive and accountable leadership. He counters his criticism with what has worked and offers views on how some of the problems that have constrained progress in South Africa and the world can be solved.

A central message emerges from his writings: leadership and governance matter, whether in the national or international context. It is a message that permeates all the chapters in the book. And it goes to the heart of what South Africa has gone through over the past two decades and where it is today.

It’s easy to imagine that state capture began with Jacob Zuma and the Guptas. But you’d be wrong.

Born out of the ANC Women’s League 20 years ago, Bosasa has come to be described as the ANC’s ‘Heart of Darkness’. At its helm today is Gavin Watson, a struggle-rugby-player-turned-tenderpreneur who made it his business to splash out on gifts and cash to get up close and personal with the country’s top politicians and civil servants. In return, Bosasa won tenders to the tune of billions of rands and – with friends in high places – stayed clear of prosecution. Adriaan Basson has been investigating Bosasa since he was a rookie journalist 13 years ago. He has been sued, intimidated and threatened, but has stuck to the story like a bloodhound. Now, in the wake of the explosive findings of the Zondo commission, he has weaved the threads of Bosasa’s story together.

Blessed by Bosasa is a riveting in-depth investigation into an extraordinary story of high-level corruption and rampant pillage, of backdoor dealings and grandiose greed. Through substantial research and a number of interviews with key individuals, Basson unveils the shady, cult-like underbelly of the criminal company that held the Zuma government in the palm of its hand.

Die skrywer Erika Murray-Theron wou weet waar die vroue in haar familie vandaan kom. Wat kry ’n mens van wie? Waar kom alles wat jý is vandaan? Hoe is die vroue in haar familie se lewe geraak deur trauma en groot wêreldgebeurtenisse waaroor hulle geen beheer gehad het nie? Theron se ouma Issie is op 3 Mei 1885 gebore; 133 jaar gelede. In hierdie verhaalbiografie gaan soek Theron in ou kookboeke, aantekeninge, foto’s, herinneringe, albums, briewe en geslagsregisters na haar ouma Issie se storie. ’n Lewe ontvou wat geraak is deur die verlies van ouers, die Anglo-Boereoorlog, die Rebellie van 1914 en daarna die energie wat dit verg om ’n groot huisgesin te behartig. ’n Skerfie glas wys hoe die verlede, selfs die verre verlede, spore op latere geslagte laat.

The Natal Midlands was ravaged by conflict in the 1980s and 1990s between supporters of the United Democratic Front and Inkatha. The violence left thousands of people dead, injured, homeless and emotionally wounded. This book provides a historical study of the origins, causes and nature of political violence in the rural community of KwaShange in the Vulindlela district. This was one of the areas most affected by the political violence in the Natal Midlands, but it has been the subject of only patchy and partial investigation.

Mxolisi Mchunu threads individual and local factors with regional and national forces and, through a local study, explains to great effect the political violence that rocked parts of Natal in that period. The account offers the testimony of survivors and the effect of the violence on community members in the ensuing years. One central contention is that the influence of the violence was transmitted across generations and sexes, through whole families and communities. Mchunu tells a story of ordinary people caught up in the cycle of revenge and despair in the killing fields of the Natal Midlands.

The stories of Naz Gool Ebrahim and District Six are intimately linked; in fact it is hard to imagine the one without the other.

As the niece of Cissie Gool, Naz came from fighting stock. Strong women with strong voices ran in the family. So when the Apartheid Government declared 'the District', a slum in 1966 and announced plans to flatten it, Naz wasn’t about to lose all that she held dear without a fight. She became the voice of the voiceless, both in South Africa and in the USA and was nominated as ‘Woman of the Year’. Naz combined her radical political activism with her roles as devoted wife and mother to six children. Up until the end of her life in 2005, she worked tirelessly to oppose the evil of racial segregation.

To her opponents, she was an indomitable adversary, but to her friends she was ‘Naz – Raz-a-ma-tazz’, a great lady who certainly knew how to tell a story and put on a good show.

Daniel Dumile Qeqe (1929–2005), ‘Baas Dan’, ‘DDQ’. He was the Port Elizabeth leader whose struggles and triumphs crisscrossed the entire gamut of political, civic, entrepreneurial, sports and recreational liberation activism in the Eastern Cape. Siwisa tells the story of Qeqe’s life and times and at the same time has written a social and political biography of Port Elizabeth – a people’s history of Port Elizabeth. As much as Qeqe was a local legend, his achievements had national repercussions and, indeed, continue to this day.

Central to the transformation of sports towards non-racialism, Qeqe paved the way for the mainstreaming and liberation of black rugby and cricket players in South Africa. He co-engineered the birth of the KwaZakhele Rugby Union (Kwaru), a pioneering non-racial rugby union that was more of a political and social movement. Kwaru was a vehicle for political dialogues and banned meetings, providing resources for political campaigns and orchestrations for moving activists into exile.

This story is an attempt at understanding a man of contradictions. In one breath, he was generous and kind to a fault. And yet he was the indlovu, an imposing authoritarian elephant, decisively brutal and aggressive. Then there was Qeqe, the man whose actions were not in keeping with the struggle. This story narrates his role in ‘collaborationist’ civic institutions and in courting reactionary homeland structures, yet through all that he was the signal actor in the emancipation of rugby in South Africa.

Beyond Diplomacy covers nearly six decades of Riaan “Koedoe” Eksteen's eventful career — from being South Africa's youngest ambassador at the time, taking the helm and transforming broadcasting in South Africa, to being closely involved in Namibia's pre- and post-independence.

Events and altercations that have never before been aired or documented are now put in a new context. For example, what exactly was said in the evening calls when P.W. Botha fired Eksteen as head of the SABC and all that happened after this. His experiences and involvement in South Africa's diplomacy stretched over a period of 27 years starting way back when Verwoerd was prime minister.

During his extraordinary career he served as ambassador under John Vorster, P.W. Botha, F.W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela.

Being Black In The World, one of N. Chabani Manganyi’s first publications, was written in 1973 at a time of global socio-political change and renewed resistance to the brutality of apartheid rule and the emergence of Black Consciousness in the mid-1960s.

Manganyi is one of South Africa’s most eminent intellectuals and an astute social and political observer. He has written widely on subjects relating to ethno-psychiatry, autobiography, black artists and race. In 2018 Manganyi’s memoir, Apartheid and the Making of a Black Psychologist was awarded the prestigious ASSAf (The Academy of Science of South Africa) Humanities Book Award. Publication of Being-Black-in-the-World was delayed until the young Manganyi had left the country to study at Yale University. His publishers feared that the apartheid censorship board and security forces would prohibit him from leaving the country, and perhaps even incarcerate him, for being a ‘radical revolutionary’. The book found a limited public circulation in South Africa due to this censorship and original copies were hard to come by.

This new edition is an invitation to a younger generation of citizens to engage with early decolonialising thought by an eminent South African intellectual. While the essays in this book are clearly situated in the material and social conditions of that time, they also have a timelessness that speaks to our contemporary concerns regarding black subjectivity, affectivity and corporeality, the persistence of a racial (and racist) order and the possibilities of a renewed de-colonial project. Each of these short essays can be read as self-contained reflections on what it meant to be black during the apartheid years. Manganyi is a master of understatement, and yet this does not stop him from making incisive political criticisms of black subjugation under apartheid. The essays will reward close study for anyone trying to make sense of black subjectivity and the persistence of white insensitivity to black suffering.

Ahead of its time, the ideas in this book are an exemplary demonstration of what a thoroughgoing and rigorous de-colonial critique should entail. The re-publication of this classic text is enriched by the inclusion of a foreword and annotation by respected scholars Garth Stevens and Grahame Hayes respectively, and an afterword by public intellectual Njabulo S. Ndebele.

Ndangwa Noyoo was Head of the Department of Social Development at UCT from 2018-2020.

This book exposes corruption and malpractices at UCT, which the author witnessed during his tenure as HoD there, before he was ousted by a group of lecturers in his department. The former had been aided and abetted by senior administrators at the faculty level.

It is a personal account that is evidence-based, as the claims the author makes in the book are documented in various reports, communications and eye-witness accounts that span a period of five and a half years.

This book is the product of many years’ research by Lodge, whose Black Politics in South Africa since 1945 (1983) established him as a leading commentator on South African politics, past and present.

2021 will mark the centenary of the foundation of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) and today’s South African Communist Party (SACP, founded in 1953 after the proscription of the CPSA) will be extremely fortunate to have the milestone marked by a scholarly work of this calibre. Since 1994, many memoirs have been written by communists, and private archives have been donated to university and other collections. Significant official archives have been opened to scrutiny, particularly those of South Africa and the former Soviet Union. It is as if a notoriously secretive body has suddenly become confiding and confessional! While every chapter draws upon original material of this sort, such evidence is supported, amplified, illuminated and challenged by the scholarship of others: the breadth of secondary sources used by the author reflects what may well be an unrivalled familiarity with the scholarly literature on political organisations and resistance in twentieth century South Africa.

Lodge provides a richly detailed history of the Party’s vicissitudes and victories; individuals – their ideas, attitudes and activities – are sensitively located within their context; the text provides a fascinating sociology of the South African left over time. Lodge is adept at making explicit what the key questions and issues are for different periods; and he answers these with analyses and conclusions that are judicious, clearly stated, and meticulously argued.

Without doubt, this book will become a central text for students of communism in South Africa, of the Party’s links with Russia and the socialist bloc, and of the Communist Party’s changing relations with African nationalism – before, during and after three decades of exile.