Patrick Cullinan is a grand old man of South African letters; his poems are profound, urbane and intelligent, sometimes playful, always carefully constructed, with each word knowingly balanced within the threads of its sentence and within the wider web of the poem as a whole. Although most of his work is clearly situated within the poetic, political, historical and imaginative landscapes of South Africa, many of its references are to European culture, to European - and particularly Italian - poets, and to the experience of living in Europe. His poems are carefully crafted and often lyrical.

Youth violence: Sources and solutions in South Africa thoroughly and carefully reviews the evidence for risk and protective factors that influence the likelihood of young people acting aggressively. Layers of understanding are built by viewing the problem from a multitude of perspectives, including the current situation in which South African youth are growing up, perspectives from developmental psychology, the influences of race, class and gender, and of the media. The book then reviews the evidence for effective interventions in the contexts of young people's lives - their homes, their schools, their leisure activities, their interactions with gangs, in the criminal justice system, in cities and neighbourhoods, and with sexual offenders. In doing so, thoughtful suggestions are made for keeping an evidence-based perspective while (necessarily) adapting interventions for contexts other than that in which they were developed, and particularly for developing world contexts such as South Africa. Youth violence in South Africa: Sources and solutions is a valuable addition to the library of anyone who has ever wondered about youth violence, or wanted to do something about it.