Southern Africa has the richest and most diverse grouping of succulents in the world. Vetplant Fairies is a collection of verse for children about indigenous succulents and the imaginary beings who live among them, written by two of our finest poets, Ingrid de Kok and Antjie Krog.

The book is beautifully illustrated in full colour by Fiona Moodie in the style of Fynbos Fairies, its hugely successful predecessor.

The scientific name for each plant is included in this enchanting new classic.

In Pillage, Krog develops her familiar themes of family, body and land but this time in the harsh light of pillaging, whether being done by nature, humans, or old age.

The poems reveal a painful fragility and yet also finding comfort, a nourishment in remarkable moments of beauty: the delight of an egret in a vlei, watching over a young child who is discovering the world around him, and remembering the raptures of love.

Pillage is translated by poet and translator, Karen Press.

In Mede-wete,’n aangrypende nuwe digbundel deur Antjie Krog, word temas soos taal, geheue en gewete met ’n nuwe intensiteit en beleënheid hanteer. Dit is haar eerste digbundel in 8 jaar.

Dié gedigte laat blyk duidelik haar diep verknogtheid aan haar geboortegrond en haar volgehoue betrokkenheid by en passie vir die land se komplekse geskiedenis en samelewing. Terselfdertyd herdefinieer sy haar identiteit as Afrikaanse digter. Te midde van verse waaruit haar woede en afkeer ten opsigte van sosiale ongeregtighede spreek, is daar ook boeiende familieverse, verse oor die generasies vorentoe en terug waarin die stemme en gesprekke opklink wat ons elke dag hoor. Ook verse oor oudword en afskeid, waarvan die huldigingsvers vir Mandela ’n hoogtepunt is.

Maar dit is verál weens die ontwrigting van taal juis om nuwe betekenis te skep dat Antjie Krog ’n opwindende digbundel lewer.

Suider-Afrika het die rykste en uiteenlopendste groepering vetplante ter wêreld. Vetplantfeetjies is ’n versameling kinderryme en pragtige kunswerk oor inheemse vetplante wat ook feetjies is, in die styl van Fynbosfeetjies, die boek se suksesvolle voorganger. Antjie Krog en Ingrid de Kok het die verse geskryf, en Fiona Moodie het kunswerk in volkleur geskep. Soos in Fynbosfeetjies, kry die plantjies se wonderlike volksname lewe en word die wetenskaplike name ook aangedui in ’n boek wat gou ’n klassieke werk sal raak.

Krog is ’n internasionaal gerekende digter maar ook plaaslik geliefd. Vyftig jaar ná haar opspraakwekkende debuut, Dogter van Jefta, verskyn daar ’n splinternuwe versameling waarin meer as honderd gedigte uit haar elf bundels saampraat. Verse oor eerste liefde, oor moederskap, oor die landskap, en oor onreg; oplaas ook oor ouer word.

'n Vry vrou bevat gunstelinge uit Krog se oeuvre maar ook minder bekende dog ewe verrassende verse. Saamgestel deur Karen de Wet.

RAU-prys vir skeppende skryfwerk (2001). In 'n paar opsigte verskil hierdie digbundel van Antjie Krog se vorige werk: vir die eerste keer beweeg die verse ook buite Suid-Afrika - elders in Afrika en ook Europa. Die verse staan in die teken van 'n soeke na identiteit op die kontinent en die vind van 'n plek binne die Afrika-bestel. Soos in haar vorige bundels hanteer Krog ook in hierdie bundel die persoonlike, die politiese en die land(skap).

On April 23, 1996, Notrose Nobomvu Konile lifted her hand and swore to tell the truth to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. She was the mother of Zabonke Konile, a young man killed in what has become known as the Gugulethu Seven incident. Antjie Krog, reporting as a journalist at the time, was struck by the seeming incoherence of the testimony. In 2004, colleagues Nosisi Mpolweni and Kopano Ratele joined Krog in a closer investigation of Mrs. Konile's words. The resulting three-year collaboration, drawing on different disciplinary and social backgrounds, has produced a fascinating account that leaves no detail of Mrs. Konile's narrative unexplored and poses questions about the unacknowledged assumptions that underpin research in this country. In addition, the book sheds light on the larger and highly relevant issues of how black and white South Africans can build bridges towards understanding one another across the cultural, social, and economic divides that threaten the country's democracy.

Lady Anne (1989) is one of Krog’s most acclaimed poetry collections. In an attempt to make sense of her own existence, Krog compares her own life in the midst of a world of racial injustice to that of the life and times of Lady Anne Barnard, of Scottish descent, during her stay in the Cape Colony in the late eighteenth century. Gradually the two voices intertwine and merge, highlighting the complexity of marriage but ultimately also that of a colonial legacy – still relevant 28 years later.

Dit is omrede sy fynbos – die smalblaar-, struikagtige plantegroei van die streek – dat die suidwestelike en suid-Kaap benoem is as een van die wereld se ses planteryke: Die Kaapse blommeryk. Met 'n opervlakte van minder as 90 000 vierkante kilometer is dit die kleinste planteryk ter wereld. Tog is dit die tuiste van 8 600 plantspesies, waarvan 5 000 nerens elders voorkom nie. Fynbos is 'n vermenging van vier plantsoorte: Protea-struike, heideagtige erikas, rietagtige restio’s en 'n verskeidenheid bolplante. In die Kaapse blommeryk groei 69 van die wereld se 112 proteas, 526 van sy 740 erikas en onder sy bolplante word 96 van die wereld se 160 gladiolusspesies aangetref. Op sy eie spog Tafeberg met byna 1 500 fynbosspesies. Met Fynbosfeetjies bring Antjie Krog en Fiona Moodie, wat albei gereeld op die hange van Tafelberg gaan stap, hulde aan een van die natuurwonders van die wereld. Antjie, geinspireer deur Cicely Mary Barker se A world of flower fairies, het die bal aan die rol gesit deur verse te skryf oor verskillende blomplante wat deur minstens een denkbeeldige wesentjie bewoon word. Fiona het elke plant, insek en gediertetjie wat in hierdie boek afgebeeld is, nagevors. Die feetjies en ander droomwesentjies is haar eie skepings, maar die blomme, gogas en diertjies het sy by die natuur afgekyk en noukeurig nageteken.

Koningin Lear is ’n herverbeelding van William Shakespeare se King Lear deur die gevierde Vlaamse skrywer Tom Lanoye. Elizabeth Lear het met die verloop van tyd haar klein besigheid opgebou tot ’n internasionale sakeryk. Elisabeth kondig aan dat die besigheid tussen haar drie seuns verdeel sal word en sy eis dat haar seuns onder eed hul liefde en trou aan haar verklaar.

Haar jongste en geliefde seun weier en dit ontketen ’n familietwis van reuse-omvang. Dit is ’n verhaal van ’n bejaarde besigheidsvrou wat haar houvas op die werklikheid verloor, wat desperaat probeer om die storm wat om haar losgebars het te hanteer. ’n Epiese verhaal wat skerp kommentaar lewer op ’n hedendaagse besigheidswereld waarin integriteit en lojaliteit skaars kommoditeite geword het.

It is for its fynbos – fine-leaved, shrub-like vegetation – that the southwestern and southern Cape has been named one of the world’s six plant kingdoms: The Cape floral kingdom. At less than 90 000 square kilometres, it is the smallest floral kingdom on earth. Yet it is home to 8 600 plant species, some 5 000 of which occur nowhere else in the world. Fynbos is a mixture of four plant types: Protea shrubs, heath-like ericas, reed-like restios and different bubous plants. The Cape floral kingdom contains 69 of the world’s 112 proteas, 526 of its 740 ericas and, among bubous plants, 96 of the world’s 160 gladiolus species. Table Mountain alone boasts almost 1 500 fynbos species. With Fynbos fairies, Antjie Krog and Fiona Moodie, both of whom regularly walk on the slopes of Table Mountain, pay homage to one of the natural wonders of the world. Inspired by Cicely Mary Barker’s A world of flower fairies, Antjie began the process by writing poems that each featured a plant and at least one imaginary little being. Fiona meticulously researched the features of each plant, insect and little animal depicted in these pages. The fairies and other imaginary beings in these pages are her own creations, but the flowers and creatures she copied from nature.

One of South Africa's greatest living poets selects from her most recent poems and also from the poems and the themes that best represent her from across her long career.
Part One of "Skinned "contains poems about writing, family and love poems. The poems in second part were chosen from a volume featuring a long epic poem based on the life of Lady Anne Barnard from Scotland, who accompanied her husband to Cape Town and lived in the castle there from 1797 until 1802. This volume was written during the height of apartheid and the poet chose Lady Anne as representative of the colonial vision. Part Three contains extracts from several speakers who lived in the land before the likes of lady Anne arrived. Krog includes here interviews with inhabitants of the stone desert, three re-workings of Bushmen or Xam narratives, as well as a translation of an oral Xhosa praise poem. Part Four represents the political turmoil of South Africa and the divisions within Africa. The poems come from volumes that explored how blacks and whites identifying with the oppressed were removed from official history. The present volume as a whole explores the necessity of "a change of tongue" in order to be.

Dié jongste bundel van Antjie Krog verskyn agt jaar ná Mede-wete.

Krog ontwikkel voormalige temas soos die landskap van die vrou, die huwelik, die aftakeling van die lyf, die vreugde van klein gesinsoomblikke, maar terselfdertyd vernuwe sy, opnuut.

Daar is ’n onrusbarende kwesbaarheid, ’n brandende woede en ’n direktheid, en tegelyk ’n hartverskeurende deernis met die ouerwordende self. In die openingsgedig skryf sy: “Dit kom nie meer op my af nie / die geluid/ die geluid van ’n gedig kom nie meer op my af nie.” En dan, teenstrydig hiermee, sleur Krog die leser in die daaropvolgende verse mee in ’n jubelsang en ook ’n klaaglied van die land wat geplunder word, maar ook die self wat plunder.

Krog probeer oplaas sin maak van die land, van die self, van die verlede. Soos Alfred Schaffer sê, daar is gewoonweg niemand in Afrikaans wat só skryf nie. Sy wys wat digkuns moet en kan wees. En hoe dit in Afrikaans kan klink en resoneer.

In times of fundamental change, people tend to find a space, lose it and the find another space as life and the world transform around them. What does this metamorphosis entail and in what ways are we affected by it? How do we live through it and what may we become on our journey toward each other, particularly when the space and places form which we depart are at least on the surface so vastly different?Ranging freely and often wittily across many terrains, this brave book by one of South Africa s foremost writers and poets provides a unique and compelling discourse on living creatively in Africa today."

In 1992, a gang leader was shot dead by a member of Umkhonto we Sizwe in Kroonstad. The murder weapon was then hidden on Antjie Krog's stoep. In Begging to Be Black, Krog begins by exploring her position in this controversial case. From there the book ranges widely in scope, both in time – reaching back to the days of Basotho king Moshoeshoe – and in space – as we follow Krog's experiences as a research fellow in Berlin, far from the Africa that produced her. Begging to Be Black forms the third part of a trilogy that Antjie Krog (unknowingly) began with Country of My Skull and continued with A Change of Tongue. Mixing memoir and history, philosophy and poetry, the book is stylistically experimental and personally courageous. Begging to Be Black is a welcome addition to Krog's own oeuvre and to South African literary non-fiction.

International scholars explore one of the most important postcolonial novels of African literature. Joint winner of Best Non-Fiction Biography, Humanities and Social Sciences Awards 2020 Sol Plaatje's Mhudi is the first full-length novel in English to have been written by a black South African and is widely regarded as one of Africa's most important literary works. Drawing upon both oral and literary traditions, Plaatje uses the form of the historical novel, and romance genre, to explore the 19th-century dispossession of his people, to provide a novel black perspective on their history. It is a book that speaks to present-day concerns, to do with land, language, history and decolonisation. Today the novel has iconic status, not only in South Africa, but worldwide - it has been translated into a number of languages - and its impact on other writers has been profound. The novelist Bessie Head described it as "more than a classic; there is just no other book on earth like it. All the stature and grandeur of the author are in it." A century after its writing in London in 1920 [it was published in South Africa in 1930, for reasons explained in the book], and at a time of intellectual ferment, with debates on decolonisation to the fore, in popular culture as much as in the academy, this book celebrates Mhudi's place in African literature, reviews its critical reception, and offers fresh perspectives. The contributors discuss Mhudis genesis, writing and publication; its reception by literary critics from the 1930s to thepresent; Mhudi as a feminist novel; Mhudis use of oral tradition; issues of translation; Mhudi in the context of African literature and history, and the decolonisation of the curriculum. An authoritative listing of all editions of Mhudi, translations as well as in English completes the book. SABATA MOKAE is a novelist and lecturer in creative writing at Sol Plaatje University, Kimberley, and the author of The Story of Sol T. Plaatje (2010). BRIAN WILLAN is Senior Research Fellow at Rhodes University, Extraordinary Professor at Sol Plaatje and North West Universities. He is the author of Sol Plaatje: a life of Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje,1876-1932 (2018), and co-editor (with Janet Remmington and Bheki Peterson) of Sol Plaatje's Native Life in South Africa: Past and Present (2016). Africa: Jacana

The taboos within the tidal moods of the menopause are described with an anger and a verbal intensity that are uniquely Krog s. Close relationships are searingly explored, occasionally in a confrontational way, more often searching for resolution. In the final meditative section, Table Mountain, a looming, symbolic and androgynous godhead is contemplated as an abiding presence and witness to the transience of human life. These dramatic, even reckless poems, reaffirm Antjie Krog s status and bring an altogether new and unique energy to South African English-language poetry.Antjie Krog s iconic status as one of South Africa s most popular and critically acclaimed poets began when she was eighteen, with her first collection, Dogter van Jefta (1970). Almost four decades later, this very different collection will confirm her reputation with poems that blur and ravage the boundaries between the lyrical and confessional, the private and public. From Body Bereft, p.62fossil alphabetthe found fossil does not describehow my blue eyes look past your eyeshow your black eyes look away from my eyeshow my white forearm does not simply rest next to your black forearmhow my sleek hair sleeps next to your frizzy hairthe fossil does however describe in the finest vertebraehow the coast blindingly kept on shouting after the continent that once was part of herhow the fynbos undisputedly sniffed for her torn-away friendshow the rusted rock along the coast longed for the drifted bloodbrotherbut the fossil knows that once everything was linkedthat we broached our hearts for one anotheronly we don t know why we now sit with this stoney one-nessand so much furious aversion "

'n Vreeslose en ekstatiese verkenning van 'n bewussyn wat aftakeling en verweer in die oog staar. In 'n stem eie aan Krog word die taboes in die verskuiwende gemoedstoestande van die menopouse met woede en verbale intensiteit beskryf. Intieme verhoudings word skreiend eerlik ondersoek. In die laaste, meer bepeinsende gedeelte word die intens persoonlike getemper. Die fokus verskuif na Tafelberg – 'n alomteenwoordigee, durende teenwoordigheid wat oor vier jaargetye waargeneem word; die onnaspeurlike getuie van verandering, maar ironies ook 'n spieel van die self en persoonlike pyn.

The first free elections in South Africa's history were held in 1994. Within a year legislation was drafted to create a Truth and Reconcilliation Commission to establish a picture of the gross human rights violations committed between 1960 and 1993. It was to seek the truth and make it known to the public and to prevent these brutal events ever happening again. From 1996 and over the following two years South Africans were exposed almost daily to revelations about their traumatic past. Antije Krog's full account of the Commission's work using the testimonies of the oppressed and oppressors alike is a harrowing and haunting book in which the voices of ordinary people shape the course of history. WINNER OF SOUTH AFRICA'S SUNDAY TIMES ALAN PATON AWARD

When apartheid ended in 1994, a radiant national optimism suggested a bright future for the new, unified South Africa. But today, even in the midst of a vibrant economy, the cumulative effect of the country's corrosive past-three hundred years of colonialism, the Anglo-Boer War, the displacement, dispossession, and disenfranchisement of millions of people, and the ravages of racism and capitalist exploitation-continues to eat away at what Archbishop Desmond Tutu admiringly called "the Rainbow Nation." Using the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a starting point, acclaimed writer Antjie Krog's essays explore texts from every corner of South Africa in an attempt to remap the borders of her country's communities. In these pages, texts from black women, Afrikaner men, and even comic strips are discussed alongside ideas from African philosophers, an archbishop, and a Nobel Prize winner. Through this extraordinary marriage of academic observation and poetic intervention, Krog endeavors to move South Africa beyond the present moment and toward a new vocabulary of grace and care.

Lady Anne: A Chronicle in Verse by Antjie Krog is the first English translation of an award winning book published in Afrikaans in 1989. It engages critically and creatively with a key moment of colonial history-the time Lady Anne Barnard spent at the Cape of Good Hope, from 1797 to 1802. Usually mentioned merely as a witty hostess of fabulous parties, Anne Lindsay Barnard, the daughter of a Scottish Earl and the wife of a colonial administrator, was an independent thinker and a painter and writer of genius. She left diaries, correspondence and watercolors documenting her experiences in this exotic land, the contact zone of colonizers and indigenous peoples. Antjie Krog acts as bard and chronicles an epic about this remarkable heroine's life in South Africa, and intertwines it with life two hundred years later in the same country but now in the throes of anti-apartheid anger and vicious states of emergency. Krog's powerful and eloquent bringing together of the past and the present, and the historical and the poetic embodies an experience that is as pertinent and compelling today in a democratic but still turbulent South Africa, as it is in the USA and other places where the intersections of race, identity, power, and language lie at the center of civic life.