"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.

When a man meets the gods, nothing remains the same. "Goldin" is a rich novel in which myth and fairytale are drawn into conversation with urgent ecological and spiritual concerns. In a literary feast of tales within tales, one man's crisis blurs into the fate of the world. A goldsmith called Alan Goldin is selected by the gods to help them decide how they should respond to the world's predicament. Should they intervene? Should they do nothing?

To be an impartial adviser, Goldin must sacrifice that which he loves most. The spiritual crisis that this provokes brings him into contact with Mataji, an ancient woman who has incarnated the goddess many times. Mataji's story, a narrative of yearning, desire, sex and bliss which spans 150 years, reveals that she and Goldin are caught up in the same problem. Her gods are Indian, rather than Greco-Roman, but they are equally disturbed by the impact of modernity.

"Goldin" repeatedly explores the granting and choosing of wishes and desires. As one character puts it, ""mortals have built a wish-granting machine of fabulous power, and can force the poor world to yield up whatever they like. But they have not wished well.""