In November 1993, ANC activist and development worker Clare Stewart’s body was found in a shallow ditch in rural KwaZulu-Natal as the province sat on the brink of civil war. Amid the ensuing chaos and euphoria of South Africa’s ‘new dawn’, the details of Clare's killing would stay hidden beneath the surface.

This gripping, moving account of Clare’s life and the mystery surrounding her death touches on the fragility of memory, family loss, apartheid’s evils, and the fault lines in our democracy.

When 18 year-old Morné Harmse walked into his Krugersdorp high school, armed with a samurai sword on a Monday in 2008, he had one mission – to commit a massacre. Inspired by the Columbine high school killings, his fantasy to make people "take notice" had been brewing for more than a year. By the time his sword-slashing spree had ended, 16-year-old Jacques Pretorius was dead and three others were brutally injured.

In the aftermath of what was described as “the most barbaric act of schoolboy violence in South African history” the country was left reeling. How does an ordinary boy from a "normal" family become a brutal killer overnight? Was Morné under the influence of a satanic cult? A protégée of mastermind Devilsdorp killer, Cecilia Steyn? Did his obsession with heavy metal band Slipknot drive him over the edge? Now, 14 years later, Morné Harmse is out on controversial parole.Written in mesmerising detail, Samurai Sword Murder finally puts together the pieces of this brutal tragedy.

A watercolour journey through the experiences of the forest folk during the pandemic.

This book introduces a series of characters, each with a personal struggle, often presented with a humoristic twist, and how they have dealt with it during a particularly trying time. The characters, although fictional, capture the struggles of many, even those who attempt to conceal theirs.

The overall theme is that we are all united in our struggles and challenges. The artworks are authentic, and although the pages were edited to blend with the text, the watercolour is unedited. The various textures and techniques match the characters’ personalities. The book has a distinctly South African flavour with international appeal.

The 100 Successful Women Around the World book is a compilation of amazing stories by incredible women from many sectors and many nations that have overcome great odds and achieved balance, daily routines, priorities, and see challenges as opportunities.

This book will inspire, motivate, teach, and empower the reader. It will have a powerful impact on their lives for years to come.

The following global organizations have joined forces to produce this book that will help women of all ages learn and grow in all areas of their lives:

• Global Trade Chamber (GTC)
• Ladies of all Nations International (LOANI)
• 100 Successful Women in Business

This is the first volume featuring the first 50 successful women from around the world.

In September 2019, Cape Town–based entrepreneur Jarette Petzer posted a video on Facebook. It was an emotional recognition of the difficulties faced by South Africa, as well as a heartfelt plea to nurture everything he loves about this country. Friends suggested that Petzer start a Facebook page to continue the conversation, and #ImStaying was born.

Within weeks, 400 000 South Africans of every race, socio-economic and political background joined the page to tell their stories of everyday life – of beauty, of hardship and the magnificence of their fellow citizens – and to share stories across cultural barriers, which many had never crossed before. By the end of December 2019, the page had more than a million followers, and it continues to grow.

Adhering to the maxim ‘Good Thoughts. Good Words. Good Deeds.’, #ImStaying is about South Africans creating social cohesion through storytelling – reaching out to each other to inspire real change in the country they love and want to see succeed, and shaping a new future out of a painful past.

This book provides another platform for the diverse voices and stories of the #ImStaying movement, as well as giving an overview of how this uniquely South African group came about and why it’s so important.

A Man, A Fire, A Corpse tells the story of Captain Amos Maneta: a man who was most often referred to as ‘The Top Cop of Soweto’; as written by his son Rofhiwa Maneta.

The book is a collection of the physical and metaphysical bruises collected by the author’s father in his 30-plus years of working in the police service.

Through his father’s story, Rofhiwa Maneta examines the relationship between police and the public. Maneta’s mix of journalism, remembered history, anecdote and autobiography further discusses the relationship between South Africa and violence; while taking a look at what it takes to be an honest policeman in a department whose groundwater is corruption and maladministration.

Eran Eyal had it all: a trendy New York apartment, a jet-set lifestyle and investors lining up to get in on his million-dollar cryptocurrency start-up, Shopin. He had come a long way from an ordinary middle-class childhood in Durban and the burgeoning tech start-up world of Cape Town.

But the New York authorities pounced in 2018, charged him with fraud and packed him off to Rikers Island. There began the gobsmacking unravelling of a scam that spanned investors across the globe and revealed that Eyal had built a house of cards involving fictitious products, clients and advisors for Shopin and his previous company, Springleap. As more than $40 million went up in smoke, the South African entrepreneur was exposed as an audacious fraudster determined to succeed at any cost – even if it meant spinning a web of  lies to do so.

“An age-old narrative about ego and flying too close to the sun as well as a modern version of greed in the tech world.” Michael Jordaan

“Eyal proves definitively that a thousand white lies can get you convicted of fraud. This book meticulously walks the reader though the start-up lies that ended in tears.” Nic Haralambous

In December 2010 while in Port Elizabeth, Andy Kawa was abducted, attacked and raped for 15 hours at Kings Beach. Her attackers were never caught. She successfully sued the police for failing to properly investigate her attack.

In November 2018, Port Elizabeth Judge Sarah Sephton found police officers were 'grossly negligent' in the performance of their duties with regards to her case both in the search and investigation.

This is Andy's story.

The New York Times bestselling author delivers an insightful, urgent analysis of who stands to win and who's at risk to lose in a post-pandemic world.

The Covid-19 outbreak has turned bedrooms into offices, pitted young against old and widened the gaps between rich and poor, red and blue, the mask-wearers and the mask-haters. Some businesses, like video conference software maker Zoom and Amazon, woke up to find themselves crushed under an avalanche of consumer demand. Others, like the restaurant, travel, hospitality and live entertainment industries, scrambled to not become instantly obsolete. But the pandemic has not been a change agent so much as an accelerant of trends that were already well underway.

In Post Corona, Galloway outlines the contours of both crisis and opportunity that lie ahead. While the powerful tech monopolies will thrive in the disruption other businesses, like commercial real estate, will struggle to maintain a value proposition that no longer makes sense when we can't stand shoulder to shoulder. Combining his signature humour and brash style with razor-sharp business insights, Galloway offers both warning and hope in equal measure.

The emigration debate is as old as our democracy itself.

When the “new South Africa” dawned in 1994, many people left the country out of fear for what majority rule would hold. More still left in the years that followed to seek a better life elsewhere, and communities of expats can be found all over the world in places such as Canada, England and Australia. Today, 25 years after the dawn of democracy, as optimism about the country's future ebbs and flows, new impetus has been given to the emigration debate. This time around, it is not only being discussed in reactionary circles, but around dinner tables of all creeds as many people leave for better education, job opportunities and safety. With the reality of nine wasted years tugging at our wallets and future prospects, and the allure of a global economy pulling strong, more and more people are asking, “Should I go?”

In Should we go? more than 20 of South Africa's foremost thought leaders such as Jonathan Jansen, Mandy Wiener, Phumzile van Damme and Ferial Haffajee grapple with this question. It is an attempt to find some answers that will give insight to and challenge every person who is thinking of leaving, has already left, or has decided to stay so that they may thrive as South Africans wherever they are.

Alet Law is the newsletter and engagement editor at News24 and former opinions editor. She holds a PhD in political communication from the University of Cape Town.

Our nurses have witnessed the pandemic first hand, compassionately caring for patients amid war-like circumstances.

The havoc caused by the pandemic highlighted existing fault lines in the South African health system, and nurses faced shortages of staff and vital life-saving equipment. Colleagues tested positive and died. Visitors were not allowed, so nurses had to be intermediaries between patients and desperate family trying to glean information on the phone. Despite these pressures, they remained at the forefront of the fight against the deadly virus.

This book brings together deeply personal stories of caring for patients in wards and ICU, of feeling overwhelmed, and experiencing the fear of getting infected and passing Covid on to their families. There are also moving tales of personal growth and finding renewed purpose.

In Our Own Words shows the extreme resilience of nurses – even in the face of adversity. And that at the core of a ‘true’ nurse remains the commitment to the patient.

This dynamic change management offering from a Robben Island freedom fighter-turned Berlin architect and a leading global change management expert is a how-to-guide for South African business and organisational leaders on how to manage diverse people in ways most beneficial for aims, that move both organisations and the country forward.

Luyanda and Klaus combine decades of professional knowledge and experience as individuals and as a team to provide critical insight into a changing world.

Racism is not a simple matter of good people versus bad. In White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo explained how racism is a system into which all white people are socialized. She also made a provocative claim: that white progressives cause the most daily harm to people of colour. In Nice Racism, her follow-up work, she explains how they do so.

Drawing on her background as a sociologist and over twenty-five years working as an antiracist educator, she moves the conversation forward. Writing directly to white people as a white person, DiAngelo identifies many common racial patterns and breaks down how well-intentioned white people unknowingly perpetuate racial harm. These patterns include rushing to prove that we are 'not racist'; downplaying white advantage; romanticizing Black, Indigenous and other peoples of colour; pretending white segregation 'just happens'; expecting BIPOC people to teach us about racism; carefulness; and shame. She challenges the ideology of Individualism and explains why it is OK to generalize about white people, and demonstrates how white people who experience other oppressions still benefit from systemic racism. Writing candidly about her own missteps and struggles, she models a path forward, encouraging white readers to continually face their complicity and embrace courage, lifelong commitment and accountability.

Nice Racism is an essential work for any white person who wants to take steps to align their values with their actual practice, and offers people of colour an 'insider's' perspective which may be helpful for navigating whiteness.

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.

This book explores representations of fathers in select South African novels published from the birth of apartheid to the post-transitional moment.

Father figures in the texts reflect political and social climates in South Africa – at different times representing the oppressive apartheid government, righteous and authoritative liberation leaders and the unfulfilled promise of a democratic South Africa. Grant Andrews examines how father characters are linked to storytelling; they narrate the lives of their children and their patriarchal power is constituted through narratives. He features authors such as Alan Paton, Nadine Gordimer, J.M. Coetzee, Zakes Mda, K. Sello Duiker, Mark Behr, Zoë Wicomb, Lisa Fugard and Zukiswa Wanner.

Stories of Fathers, Stories of the Nation also investigates how fatherhoods are being reimagined in light of shifting discourses of gender and identity. More recent novels have deconstructed the father figure and his paternal narrative power, representing conflicts around racial identity, sexuality, legacy and how the sins of the father are visited on his children.

Die debat oor emigrasie is so oud soos Suid-Afrika se demokrasie self. Toe die “nuwe Suid-Afrika” in 1994 aangebreek het, het talle mense die land verlaat uit vrees vir wat ‘n meerderheidsbewind sou inhou. Nog meer het in die jare sedertdien getrek opsoek na ‘n beter lewe en Suid-Afrikaanse gemeenskappe is nou in plekke soos Kanada, Engeland en Australië te vinde.

Vandag, 25 jaar ná demokrasie en in die lig van kwynende optimisme oor die toekoms van die land, is daar nuwe lewe in die debat oor emigrasie. Hierdie keer word dit nie net in reaksionêre kringe gevoer nie, maar om die eetkamertafels van meerdere Suid-Afrikaners.

Met die realiteit van nege vermorste jare wat aan ons beursies en toekomsmoontlikhede knaag, en die aanloklike geleenthede wat die globale ekonomie bied, vra al hoe meer mense, “Moet ek waai?”

In Moet ons waai? takel meer as 20 van Suid-Afrika se voorste meningsvormers, insluitend Piet Croucamp, Dana Snyman, Melanie Verwoerd en Jonathan Jansen, hierdie vraag. Dit is poging tot insig oor ‘n kwessie wat swaar weeg op ons kollektiewe psige, en ‘n uitdaging aan elke persoon wat dit oorweeg om te waai, reeds gegaan het of besluit het om te bly om te floreer as Suid-Afrikaners waar ook al hulle hulself mag bevind.

An in-depth exploration of Nuraan Davids’ experience as a Muslim ‘coloured’ woman, traversing a post-apartheid space. It centres on and explores a number of themes, which include her challenges not only as a South African citizen, and within her faith community, but as an academic citizen at a historically white university. The book is her story, an autoethnography, her reparation.

By embarking on an auto-ethnography, she not only tries to change the way her story has been told by others, transforms her ‘sense of what it means to live’ (Bhabha, 1994). She is driven by a postcolonial appeal, which insists that if she seeks to imprint her own way of life into the discourses which pervade the world around her, then she can no longer allow herself to be spoken on behalf of or to be subjugated into the hegemonies of others.

The main argument of Out of Place is that Muslim, ‘coloured’ women are subjected to layers of scrutiny and prejudices, which have yet to be confronted. What we know about Muslim ‘coloured’ women has been shaped by preconceived notions of ‘otherness’, and attached to a meta-narrative of ‘oppression and backwardness’. By centring and using her lived experiences, the author takes readers on a journey of what it is like to be seen in terms of race, gender and religion – not only within the public sphere of her professional identities, but within the private sphere of her faith community.

How public events affect private lives is a Leitmotiv of this moving memoir. Eva and her secular Jewish family managed to evade the Holocaust and lesser public disasters, but not some private ones. They were able to leave Vienna a year after the Nazi Anschluss (Annexation) of Austria. In New York and several other places and cultures, she evolved from a shy, often fearful child and adolescent to an increasingly self-confident feminist and outspoken peace activist.

She married George Moseley believing he was the “black sheep” of his right-wing military family. While his political views and attitude toward her Jewishness sometimes wavered, she remained true to her parents’ social-democratic principles and the “Jewish value” of justice for everyone. Family relations and troubles play out in a context of the Cold War and changes in Jewish status with the rise of Israel. After a not-so-amicable divorce and George’s violent death (an unsolved murder?), her attitude toward Jewishness changed because of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians.

Worried about the future her offspring—and everyone else—will face, she devoted much of her time as a dissenting citizen concerned with issues ranging from nuclear weapons and climate change to advocacy for Palestinian rights and opposing unquestioning US support of militarized Israel.

Granting Justice takes issue with the characterisation of the South African state as “developmental”. The crucial aspect of care is missing from the practice for this to be the case. Thus, while the grants address the immediate survival needs of many South Africans, social justice requires quite a different approach, an approach of care that would grant agency and dignity to recipients.

Tessa Hochfeld adopts a highly personal narrative style of writing that reflects the ethical standpoint that she took during her research. Telling a story is what makes her writing so strong and distinguishes it in the development literature.

The book falls into the fields of development studies, and social welfare and social development. The following are possible keywords: social justice; gender justice; care; social development; poverty; social protection; southern welfare; family strengthening; developmental social work.

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.

Bulelwa Mabasa was born into a ‘matchbox’ family home in Meadowlands, Soweto, at the height of apartheid. In My Land Obsession, she shares her colourful Christian upbringing, framed by the lived experiences of her grandparents, who endured land dispossession in the form of the Group Areas Act and the migrant labour system.

Bulelwa’s world was irrevocably altered when she encountered the disparities of life in a white-dominated school. Her ongoing interest in land justice informed her choice to study law at Wits, with the land question becoming central in her postgraduate studies. When Bulelwa joined the practice of law in the early 2000s as an attorney, she felt a strong need to build on her curiosity around land reform, moving on to form and lead a practice centred on land reform at Werksmans Attorneys. She describes the role played by her mentors and the professional and personal challenges she faced.

My Land Obsession sets out notable legal cases Bulelwa has led and lessons that may be drawn from them, as well as detailing her contributions to national policy on land reform and her views on how the land question must be inhabited and owned by all South Africans.

An entertaining, unconventional family memoir from the daughter of one of the most prolific early sperm donors AKA 'Donor 150'.

For most of her life, Chrysta Bilton was one member of a small, if dysfunctional, family of four. There was her sister, Kaitlyn, her hedonistic, glamorous, gay mum Debra, and Jeffrey, who Debra hand-picked, in an LA hairdressers, to be the father of her children. During Chrysta's unstable childhood, Debra struggled to keep the family afloat and Jeffrey wandered in and out of their lives.

Then, in her twenties, Chrysta discovered that her father had secretly donated his sperm over 500 times - and that she had at least 35 other siblings.

A Normal Family is a captivating coming-of-age memoir about Chrysta's reckoning with the secrets both parents had carefully kept from her. Heartfelt, warm and funny, it's a story of embracing the family we have, in all the forms we find it.

'A remarkable set of essays unlike anything else' - Kadish Morris, Guardian As in her fiction, the essays in Out of the Sun demonstrate Esi Edugyan's commitment to seeking out the stories of Black lives that history has failed to record. Written with the death of George Floyd and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement in the background, in five wide-ranging essays Edugyan reflects on her own identity and experiences as the daughter of Ghanaian immigrants. She delves into the history of Western Art and the truths about Black lives that it fails to reveal, and the ways contemporary Black artists are reclaiming and reimagining those lives. She explores and celebrates the legacy of Afrofuturism, the complex and problematic practice of racial passing, the place of ghosts and haunting in the imagination, and the fascinating relationship between Africa and Asia dating back to the 6th Century. With calm, piercing intelligence, and a refusal to think on anyone's terms but her own, Edugyan asks difficult questions about how we reckon with the past and imagine the future, and invites the reader to think alongside her in working out what the answers to these may be.