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

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

The past three decades have seen a remarkable rise of Afrikaners in business. In light of the government’s comprehensive black economic empowerment programme this has been one of the unexpected features of the South African economy.

Today many of these Afrikaner tycoons are competing internationally. With Koos Bekker at its helm, media group Naspers began dominating the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and was turned into a global consumer internet group. Johann Rupert strongly extended Richemont’s share internationally in the upper-end market of luxury goods, while Christo Wiese and Whitey Basson at Pepkor and Shoprite became Africa’s largest clothing and food retailers.

Fortunes describes how these and other business leaders, such as Jannie Mouton, Michiel le Roux, Douw Steyn, Roelof Botha, Hendrik du Toit and a number of commercial farmers, built their empires. It looks at their life and business philosophies and what makes them such successful entrepreneurs.

Recent years have also seen the sensational collapse of Steinhoff International, the furniture retailer led by Markus Jooste that destroyed some of these fortunes. While Jooste is the topic of one of the chapters, another looks at the philanthropic projects most of these tycoons are involved in.

It was one of the most brutal criminal acts of the post-apartheid era, and its consequences devastating.

Thousands of people died between 2011 – 2019 resulting from one senior police officer’s crime: his decision to sell millions of rands’ worth of guns. Colonel Christiaan Prinsloo, former head of the Gauteng firearm license division, and his network of cronies sold guns decommissioned by the SAPS to South Africa’s gang lords. The sale of such weapons led to a killing spree of unprecedented proportions.

Based on interviews with police and the criminal underworld, this book tells the story of this callous crime for the first time. Shaw explores how the illegally sold guns got into the hands of South Africa’s crime bosses. The book describes the bloodbath that ensued and uncovers accounts of rampant corruption within the police and in the gun-licensing system, probing the government failure that has been instrumental in arming the country’s gangsters.

In March 2016, Mosilo Mothepu was appointed CEO of Trillian Financial Advisory, a subsidiary of Gupta-linked Trillian Capital Partners. The prospect of being at the helm of a black-owned financial consultancy was electrifying for a black woman whose twin passions were transformation and empowering women. Three months later, suffering from depression and insomnia, she resigned with no other job lined up.

In October 2016, a written statement handed to Public Protector Thuli Madonsela detailing Trillian’s involvement in state capture was leaked to the media. Key to the disclosures were the removals of finance ministers Nhlanhla Nene and Pravin Gordhan from their posts due to the Guptas’ influence. Although she was not identified by name as the source of the affidavit, details of the revelations published in the Sunday Times left no doubt in the minds of Trillian’s executives: Mothepu was the Nenegate whistleblower.

Despite fearing legal consequences, Mothepu had decided that she could not just stand by as the country burnt. Her disclosures resulted in the freezing of Trillian-associated company Regiments Capital’s assets and a High Court order for Trillian to pay back almost R600 million to Eskom. Facing criminal charges and bankruptcy, unemployed and deemed a political risk, Mothepu experienced first-hand the loneliness of whistleblowing. The effect on her mental and physical health was devastating. Now, in Uncaptured, she recounts this troubling yet seminal chapter in her life with honesty, humility and wry humour in the hope that others who find themselves in a similar situation will follow in her footsteps and speak truth to power.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Expensive Poverty lays out how to get there.

Born Karoline King in 1980 in Johannesburg South Africa, Sara-Jayne (as she will later be called by her adoptive parents) is the result of an affair, illegal under apartheid’s Immorality Act, between a white British woman and her black South African employee. Her story reveals the shocking lie created to cover up the forbidden relationship, and the hurried overseas adoption of the illegitimate baby, born during one of history’s most inhumane and destructive regimes.

Killing Karoline follows the journey of the baby girl (categorised as ‘white’ under South Africa’s race classification system) who is raised in a leafy, middle-class corner of the South of England by a white couple. It takes the reader through the formative years, a difficult adolescence and into adulthood, as Sara-Jayne (Karoline) seeks to discover who she is and where she came from. Plagued by questions surrounding her own identity and unable to ‘fit in’ Sara-Jayne (Karoline) begins to turn on herself, before eventually coming full circle and returning to South Africa after 26 years to face her demons. There she is forced to face issues of identity, race, rejection and belonging beyond that which she could ever have imagined.

She must also face her birth family, who in turn must confront what happens when the baby you kill off at a mere six weeks old, returns from the dead.

Coloured as an ethnicity and racial demographic is intertwined in the creation of the South Africa we have today. Yet often, Coloured communities are disdained as people with no clear heritage or culture — ‘not being black enough or white enough.’

Coloured challenges this notion and presents a different angle to that narrative.

It delves into the history of Coloured people as descendants of indigenous Africans and a people whose identity was shaped by colonisation, slavery, and the racial political hierarchy it created. Although rooted in a difficult history, this book is also about the culture that Coloured communities have created for themselves through food, music, and shared lived experiences in communities such as Eldorado Park, Eersterus, and Wentworth. Coloured culture is an act of defiance and resilience.

Coloured is a reflection on, and celebration of Coloured identities as lived experiences. It is a call to Coloured communities to reclaim their identity and an invitation to understand the history and place of Coloured people in the making of South Africa’s future

A compelling and agonising story.

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

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

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

When we say we want to be safe, what do we mean? Is the state capable of achieving this for us? These are important questions for anyone envisioning and building a future anywhere, but especially in South Africa. This book explores contemporary South African society through the lens of law and order, and with the goal of understanding what reform must look like going forward, in a way that is accessible to ordinary citizens who need this most. 

In South Africa, both ‘crime’ and ‘safety’ are loaded terms. Ziyanda Stuurman unpacks the complex and fraught history of policing, courts and prisons in South Africa. In her analysis of the problems nationally and in putting those problems in context with the rest of the world, she concludes that more resources won’t necessarily lead to more safety. What then, will?

Ziyanda unpacks this complex question deftly with a view of a better future for us all.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"A patient is standing in the middle of the river. He gazes across the water to the city and the mountain above where the sun is setting. His back is turned to the hospital. The nurses are waiting for him patiently on the river bank. He seems uncertain whether to cross the river or to return. There is no danger. He is on the edge, in an in-between space, as is the hospital where I have worked as a specialist psychiatrist for over twenty-five years."

For many of us, what lies beyond conventional portrayals of mental illness is often shrouded in mystery, misconception and fear. Dr Sean Baumann spent decades as a psychiatrist at Valkenberg Hospital and, through his personal engagement with patients’ various forms of psychosis, he describes the lived experiences of those who suffer from schizophrenia, depression, bipolar and other disorders.

The stories told are authentic, mysterious and compelling, representing both vivid expressions of minds in turmoil and the struggle to give form and meaning to distress. The author seeks to describe these encounters in a respectful way, believing that careless portrayals of madness cause further suffering and perpetuate the burden of stigma.

Baumann argues cogently for a more inclusive way of making sense of mental health. With sensitivity and empathy, his enquiries into the territories of art, psychology, consciousness, otherness, free will and theories of the self reveal how mental illness raises questions that affect us all.

Madness is illustrated by award-winning artist Fiona Moodie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Dancing a tango with death’ was the daily life of the DCC – the Directorate of Covert Collection – secret agents, working in what JJ ‘Tolletjie’ Botha called ‘hostile countries’. Who were these men? Airline pilots, Belgian missionaries, German industrialists, engineers, medical doctors, high-ranking officers of enemy countries and last, but not least, people like a well-known Namibian lawyer and a famous, internationally acclaimed South African singer; people who, sometimes unwittingly, collaborated with the ‘shadow’s men’, believing they were helping friendly countries … Did the document prepared by General Pierre Steyn, the famous topsecret Steyn Report, really exist?

In this book you will find the full original document whose existence has been denied by FW de Klerk and his closest allies. Did Judge Richard Goldstone act bona fide by accepting in his final report the information given to him by Counter Intelligence and the NIS, information that, at the very end, emerged as “hearsay”? Was Judge Goldstone aware of the final objective of the tandem pair Steyn-De Klerk to decapitate the South African Defence Force?

Did the top structure of the DCC maintain close contacts with most of the Western intelligence services, and particularly the British MI6? Was any one of the hundreds of civilian and military men ‘listed’ as part of the infamous Third Force ever condemned? Was Staal Burger or Ferdi Barnard really part of the DCC or were they ‘imposed’ by the then Chief of the Army, General Kat Liebenberg? Did you know that more than half the African members of the first Mandela cabinet had been on the DCC’s payroll? Why did the Motsuenyane Commission of Enquiry have to suspend its search, and never published the list of ANC members massacred or disappeared, victims of their own comrades?

Why has land reform been such a failure in South Africa? Will expropriation without compensation solve the problem? What can be done to get the land programme back on track?

In his new book, Tembeka Ngcukaitobi tackles these questions, and more. Going back in history, he shows how Africans’ communal land ownership was used by colonial rulers to deny that Africans owned the land at all. He explores the effect of the Land Acts, Bantustans and forced removals. And he considers the ANC’s policies on land throughout the twentieth century, during the negotiations of the 1990s, and in government.

Land Matters unpacks developments in land redistribution, restitution and tenure reform, and makes suggestions for what needs to be done in future. The book also considers the power of chiefs, the tension between communal land ownership and the desire for private title, the failure of the willing-buyer, willing-seller approach, women and land reform, the role of banks, and the debates around amending the Constitution.

Thoughtful and provocative, Land Matters sheds light on one of the most complex questions in South Africa today.

If this book saves just one person’s life, Leo Prinsloo will be happy.

Leo became an internet sensation after footage of his reaction to an attempted high-value goods-in-transit heist went viral. Stunned by his cool attitude and focused action in a crisis situation, South Africans had an example of what can happen when good people take a stand. With decades of experience in security – first as a policeman, then in the South African Police Service’s Special Task Force, and now providing arms handling and security training in the private sector – Leo has a wealth of knowledge on how to manage life-threatening incidents.

Driven by a desire to empower South Africans and help them claim back their sense of safety, he offers advice for dealing with every risky situation, from how to handle hijackings and road rage, to how to keep your children safe, to the best way to secure your home and business. He also provides comprehensive information about handling firearms and basic first aid.

Leo’s Guide to Not Becoming a Statistic is a guide to living your safest life in South Africa – something which has become increasingly important as our crime statistics continue to rise. Straight-talking and honest – much like Leo himself – it is an easy to use manual that makes keeping safe accessible, with relatable information and easy to implement tips.

Leo says that taking the first step towards securing your safety is the most important, and his book will help you take that step.

Sharks are among the most persecuted animals on Earth. Nicole’s block-buster story lifts the lid on the shocking details of the trade in shark fins, and raises awareness of the plight of sharks in the 21st century.

In November 2003 a female Great White Shark was tagged near Dyer Island in South Africa. Her tag popped up in February 2004, just south of Western Australia. The shark, later to be named Nicole (after shark enthusiast Nicole Kidman), had swum an epic 11,000 km. Scientists were even more surprised when she was identified back in South Africa in August 2004 – she had covered 22,000 km in less than nine months, using pinpoint navigation both ways.

Since then, many Great Whites have been tagged and have shown a propensity for undertaking long migrations – but none has yet matched Nicole's amazing feat. This story incorporates a blend of science, actual events and real people, along with conjecture as to what might have happened on Nicole's momentous journey.

Chris Barnard needed the help of exceptional men and women to stay ahead of the fast-developing science of transplantation. One of these exceptional men were Winston Wicomb, the darker brother of the famous Randall.

He had to be hidden as a child to prevent the Apartheid inspectors from discovering his family’s racial identity. He had to endure the rampant racism that existed in South Africa at school and in the army… Winston, who had to fix cars in the backyard to make ends meet, had a curious encounter with Chris Barnard and got appointed in his research laboratory. Winston had to develop an apparatus with which hearts could be kept alive to enable transport.

This is the story of an unlikely hero; a man who changed transplantation forever, and a South African citizen who never got the recognition he deserved.

It’s a story of perseverance. And hope. Even... love.

Bart, die aantreklikste ou in haar matriekklas, soen Esli uit haar vel. Vir meer as veertig jaar deel hulle hul lewens, maak saam kinders groot en sien om na vriende en familie. Jaarliks vier hulle Kersfees in Kleinmond met geskenke en trifle en stappies langs die see met hul worshond.

Maar hoekom val Bart se broer uit ’n boom voor Esli se ouerhuis? En watter donker geheim is onderliggend aan Bart se ma se vreemde gedrag en onfatsoenlike grappe? Wat dink kollegas van Esli se haarstyleksperimente en panda-oë? Verdien sy om in die spaarkamer te skuil omdat sy, volgens Bart, aand na aand die kos brand en die hond se pote laat nat word as dit reën?

In So Lyk ’n Vrou vertel Ilse Verster van Esli se heelwording en hoe sy, ná ’n leeftyd van mishandeling, in ’n rooi rok op die strand kon staan met een vuis in die lug en vry kon voel. Sy gee stem aan ’n stukkende vrou wat net wil hê die pyn moet stop. Sy deel wat dit verg om jou teen die muur op te trek, jou teen die samelewing te handhaaf en jouself te red.

Albertina Sisulu is revered by South Africans as the true mother of the nation. A survivor of the golden age of the African National Congress, whose life with the second most important figure in the ANC exemplified the underpinning role of women in the struggle against apartheid.

In 1944 she was the sole woman at the inaugural meeting of the radical offshoot of the ANC, the Youth League, with Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo and Anton Lembede in the vanguard. Her final years were spent in an unpretentious house in the former white Johannesburg suburb of Linden. A friend said of her, "she treated everybody alike. But her main concern was the welfare of our women and children." This abridged account of Sisulu’s overflowing life provides a fresh understanding of an iconic figure of South African history.

This new abridged memoir is written by Sindiwe Magona, one of South Africa’s most prolific authors, and Elinor Sisulu, writer, activist and daughter-in-law of Albertina.

Die motiewe agter gesinsmoorde is dikwels vreemder as fiksie. Tergende vrae kan deur psigiaters beantwoord word ... of dalk nie. Deur na verskeie gevalle van gesinsmoord te kyk gooi hierdie boek ’n bietjie lig in 'n baie donker plek. Met onder meer die stories van die Lotters wat gebreinspoel was tot moord op hul ouers en die Van Breda bylmoorde.

This extensive history of South Africa was written by some of the country’s most prominent historians such as Hermann Giliomee, Jan Visagie, David Scher and Fransjohan Pretorius.

Its broad scope includes South Africa's pre-colonial history, slavery, Afrikaner nationalism, an environmental history and an analysis of a post-apartheid South Africa.

In this updated edition, a new chapter by Jan-Jan Joubert has been added – From state capture to Covid: the decline of the ANC.