To date, there has been no published textbook which takes into account changing sociolinguistic dynamics that have influenced South African society. Multilingualism and Intercultural Communication breaks new ground in this arena. The scope of this book ranges from macro-sociolinguistic questions pertaining to language policies and their implementation (or non-implementation) to micro-sociolinguistic observations of actual language-use in verbal interaction, mainly in multilingual contexts of Higher Education (HE). There is a gradual move for the study of language and culture to be taught in the context of (professional) disciplines in which they would be used, for example, Journalism and African languages, Education and African languages, etc. The book caters for this growing market. Because of its multilingual nature, it caters to English and Afrikaans language speakers, as well as the Sotho and Nguni language groups - the largest languages in South Africa [and also increasingly used in the context of South African Higher Education]. It brings together various inter-linked disciplines such as Sociolinguistics and Applied Language Studies, Media Studies and Journalism, History and Education, Social and Natural Sciences, Law, Human Language Technology, Music, Intercultural Communication and Literary Studies. The unique cross-cutting disciplinary features of the book will make it a must-have for twenty-first century South African students and scholars and those interested in applied language issues.

Ken Barris, who lives and works in Cape Town, has published several novels, a collection of short stories and of poetry. His short stories and poems have appeared in many anthologies. He won the Ingrid Jonker Prize for poetry, the Vita Award for a collection of short fiction, and the M-Net Book Prize for his first novel, The Jailer’s Book. In 2003 he was shortlisted for the Caine Prize.

Life in the 1960s in Port Elizabeth comes under the microscope. Life Underwater tells the story of the three Machabeus brothers: Jude, Simon and younger Eli, first as children and teenagers, and then as grown men upon the death of their father. While there may be nothing new under the sun, in the hands of a writer as skilled as Barris the material of family life is here wrought into something compelling, beautiful and visceral – magnifying the tragedies, and singular triumphs, of the everyday.

"Think [Nabokov's] Pale Fire, perhaps, or [Byatt's] Possession, but in a contemporary Afropolitan context." Jenefer Shute, author of Life-size, sex crimes and user ID. Unhappily married Cape Town academic Art Berger is offered what appears to be a professional lifeline: to reconstitute the final papers of the great South African writer Charles de Villiers into book-form. He is uncomfortable about the role of ghost-writer, but the project becomes literary detective-work he cannot give up. Introduce De Villiers' beautiful daughter Taryn, and Art is ensnared. Sunderland alternates between sections, mostly in journal form, chronicling Art's struggle to make sense of De Villiers' fragmented and disordered text, and sections - scenes, notes, outlines - from that very work (also entitled 'Sunderland'). A novel of (literary) ideas as much as of character, this fascinating collaboration by two of South Africa's finest wranglers of words still comes to a literal crescendo; a finely tuned masterpiece to read in one sitting.

A collection of new and critically acclaimed stories by award-winning South African author Ken Barris. Here, Barris's work combines everyday events with the surreal and fantastical: the title story centres on a dog called Worm; in another, husband and wife quarrel over a plugless lamp; and in another, a man encounters a speaking baboon in his kitchen. Poised, lyrical and humorous, the stories in this collection concretise the human condition via the author's characteristically unfettered style.