Xoliswa Nduneni-Ngema loved the theatre and dreamed of being an actress. She soon discovered that acting wasn't for her – managing productions was. She meets rising-star, Mbongeni Ngema and they marry.  As his success grows, they start a company that births the hit Sarafina! But beneath the stardom, Xoliswa experiences constant abuse.  With Fred Khumalo, she tells her powerful story. 

In A Coat of Many Colours, award-winning author Fred Khumalo presents a patchwork of various vibrant stories befitting the collection’s title.

A boy plays detective, investigating the case of a goat and a coat; a woman takes revenge; an inhlabi bites off more than he can chew; teenage enmity rears its head in a prestigious school for girls; a man is cursed with an ever-growing sexual appetite; and more thoughtful stories with an entertaining zing!

Paris, 1958. A skirmish in a world-famous restaurant leaves two men dead and the restaurant staff baffled. Why did the head waiter, a man who’s been living in France for many years, lunge at his patrons with a knife?

As the man awaits trial, a journalist hounds his long-time friend, hoping to expose the true story behind this unprecedented act of violence.

Gradually, the extraordinary story of Pitso Motaung, a young South African who volunteered to serve with the Allies in the First World War, emerges. Through a tragic twist of fate, Pitso found himself on board the ss Mendi, a ship that sank off the Isle of Wight in February 1917. More than six hundred of his countrymen, mostly black soldiers, lost their lives in a catastrophe that official history largely forgot. One particularly cruel moment from that day will remain etched in Pitso’s mind, resurfacing decades later to devastating effect.

Dancing The Death Drill recounts the life of Pitso Motaung. It is a personal and political tale that spans continents and generations, moving from the battlefields of the Boer War to the front lines in France and beyond. With a captivating blend of pathos and humour, Fred Khumalo brings to life a historical event, honouring both those who perished in the disaster and those who survived.

It’s 1899 and Philippa’s fiancé Nduku has just broken off their engagement. She is heartbroken – after all, she has followed him from Kimberley, where they first met, to the goldfields of Johannesburg. In this bustling new city, tensions are mounting between the South African Republic and the gold-hungry British Empire. When war is declared, the mines are shut down and migrant workers ordered to leave town.

But how do you get home and out of harm’s way when there are no running trains and home is hundreds of kilometres away? You walk. Over perilous terrain Nduku and Philippa and seven thousand others walk to Natal. Disguised as a mineworker’s wife, for Philippa is white, she and Nduku talk about their true histories, about their fears and hopes, and with every footfall the possibility of lasting happiness seems within reach – if only they can survive, and if only they can weather the storm of an unexpected third player in their troubled romance.

Set during an incredible event in South African history, The Longest March is a tale of heady determination, and a tribute to the perseverance and courage of ordinary men and women when faced with extraordinary circumstances.

In this title, Seven Steps To Heaven, this streetwise philosopher of the shebeens and entrepreneur par excellence takes the back seat as her son Kokoroshe, street urchin turned lawyer, takes centre stage.

This is a multilayered family saga, a riveting tale of love, betrayal, and a search for identity - sexual and otherwise.

Dark and understated, but sometimes boisterous and with the in-your-face humour that made Bitches' Brew a hit with readers and critics alike, is the engine that drives Seven Steps To Heaven to a painful yet satisfying climax.

Talk of the Town by award-winning writer Fred Khumalo comprises short stories he wrote over many years. In this vibrant collection Khumalo explores identity and belonging through tales about African foreign nationals in South Africa, xenophobia, South Africans abroad, exiled comrades during apartheid, and past and current township life. At times hilarious and at times gut-wrenching, this is a collection that will move you.

Bitches' brew, is a South African love story set in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands. It focuses on the epic love affair between Bra Zakes, a former amateur musician, bootlegger, mercenary and killer of great repute and Lettie, a shebeen queen. Bitches' brew traces the couple's lives and loves through the interweaving of history and memory in the tradition of village storytellers. As he lies dying, and facing the prospect of his assets being confiscated by the Assets Forfeiture Unit, Bra Zakes is surrounded by his trusted luitenants who wait for their last instructions from their "mafia" boss. Also at his bedside is Lettie, whom he has not seen for twenty years, and whom he hopes to make a beneficiary of his empire.

As a teenager, Fred Khumalo greeted his friends with a handshake and the words "touch my blood". It implied friendship and trust. The saying became his name. More than that, it became the way he viewed the world. Everything touched Fred Khumalo. Twice he was bewitched. Twice his father - the "country bumpkin" - took him to inyangas to have the "demons" banished. Twice his mother - the "city girl" - took him to a doctor to have the "fevers" cured. He smoked dagga with conmen and criminals, he pickpocketed "corpses" on the Friday night trains and worked as a gardener in the larney suburbs. He studied journalism and shacked up with whiteys in a commune, for a while the only darkie in a crazy swirl of booze, drugs and sex. And then the bloody fighting that tore apart KwaZulu/Natal in the 1980s touched his life and sucked him into a place of horror and violence that threatened to destroy him. When a friend died in his arms with the worlds "They really got me, Touch my blood. They really got me", Khumalo realised that if he was to outlive the madness, he had to run. From the journalist and Sunday Times columnist comes a startlingly honest, humorous and poignant autobiography about growing up in a time of laughter and heartache.

Nozizwe and her mother, sister and aunt escape a group of rebels that have captured them to be sold into slavery. In their escape they end up in the clutches of human traffickers, imprisoned on a farm.

Nozizwe escapes, pretending to be a boy, and makes her way to Johannesburg to become a street child.

No one she approaches believes her fantastic tale and they ignore her appeals for help.

With tongue and cheek, a mischievous glint in his eye and palpable impish countenance, Khumalo studiously sets about challenging us to interrogate our nature as a species. That is after all, the core function of the columnist- to dissect societal existential truths and drag the citizens kicking and screaming closer to facing their demons. Fred’s columns are always dripping with a self-effacing, disarming glibness that successfully masks the underlying steeliness of his probing writing. More than anything else, true to the 'somewhat serious, somewhat fun' tag of his page in the Sunday Times, Fred Khumalo has the enviable gift of being entertaining as he goes about disseminating these truths.

Paris,1958. An Algerian waiter at the famous restaurant La Tour d'Argent is convicted of the murder of two customers. As he is awaiting trial, his long-time friend Jerry Moloto helps an opportunistic and ambitious journalist build a case to defend him. Through Jerry's testimony the reader discovers that the waiter is actually Pitso Motaung, a mixed race South African drafted to fight in the First World War. He is also one of the few remaining survivors of the SS Mendi tragedy, which saw the formidable warship sink off the coast of the Isle of Wight, killing 646 people, including many black South African soldiers. So how did a brave soldier become a criminal and will Pitso's name be cleared before it is too late? Commemorating the 100th year anniversary of the sinking of the SS Mendi, Dancing the Death Drill is a timely novel about life and the many challenges it throws our way.