A fanciful fable in which the young heir apparent of the Greyfur kingdom of Aloes-Redding – an idyllic place of the far edge of the polluted and desecrated human territory of Blasterland – must find his true name and ascend the throne.

Based on historical fact, it tells the poignant story of a little girl and her Ouma who experience removal from their suburb when it is proclaimed 'white' under apartheid's Group Areas Act.

Although narrated with the voice of innocence, this novella is hugely perceptive of injustice.

In this, the fifth of the Africa! anthologies, Dan Wylie and Patricia Schonstein collaborated to bring together a selection of poems to reveal the beauty, grandeur and exploitation of wild and urban landscapes.

Poems are 'touched' by Africa, in the broadest sense. They focus on the environment while still engaging with emotions of love, loss and longing.

These poems will make your heart both sing and sigh.

A run-down block of flats in central Cape Town, home to refugees and illegal immigrants, becomes a young girl's gallery of self-discovery in this moving story of the emotional carnage caused by Africa's civil wars.

Drug dealers from Nigeria, Zimbabwean wire-workers, immigrants from Rwanda and Sudan, a Mozambican refugee - all seeking the peace of a newly democratic South Africa - bear down on her fragile world, then scoop her up into theirs.

Skyline is an unflinching look at one girl's coming of age in the colourful and violent streets of a city waking up to the rest of Africa.

A rich anthology that illustrates the enduring narrative of war in Africa. Military strategists, commanders, warriors, conscripts and seasoned fighters come together from diverse battle landscapes to voice the horror & pathos of war. Around them chorus the haunting laments of war-widows, survivors & those who bury the dead.

A candid account of Patricia Schonstein’s creative, deeply lived life as a novelist.

Annotated with extracts from her writings, this generous memoir welcomes you behind the scenes, into her Workshop and Costumery.

She shows how her own life configures with the scaffolding of her fictions; how characters take up roles both archetypal and simple to tackle existential questions; and how urban landscapes and wilderness serve as the neon-spangled theatres of her story telling.

Eloquent and elegant voices come together in the many dialects of the human heart. They succinctly describe, sculpt and expose the layers of everyday existence. We find love, beauty, reverie and simplicity running alongside pathos and sorrow, expressed on rural, urban, domestic and wild settings. Seen as a whole, the anthology exposes the amazing life-scaffolding that poetry offers us.

In Banquet at Brabazan, Patricia Schonstein takes us to the heart of Cape Town's violent inner city. She weaves together a rich and consuming story of a secret love affair between a boss and his secretary who create a fantastical, theatrical life for themselves within the confines of her apartment. Their theatrical existence is intricately entangled with superb food, romance, a cappella, an angel, Shakespearean drama, reflections on South Africa's war in Angola, drug-money, a muti murder, visions of the Afterlife and various works of fine art with flashbacks to the wondrous A Time of Angels. In contrast to their contrived space, outside the apartment exists the real world of loneliness, xenophobia and crime that have come to mark post-apartheid South Africa. Patricia Schonstein deftly leads us through both worlds, allowing the lives of a small group of people, who have not met before, to intersect over a period of ten days at Brabazan Bar & Lodge, in Long Street, Cape Town. Here she reveals a poignant and beautiful patina of hope and love.

In the Karoo-like landscape of a mythical country beset with civil war,
tarot cards flutter away on the wind and bones swiftly turn to dust. Against
the backdrop of this arid place, one woman survives on her inner resources:

Kitty Cloete, the inn-keeper’s wife.

Strong and self-willed, Kitty is a skilled equestrienne, wheelwright,
blacksmith and talented harpist – none of which could shield her from a
loveless marriage after an ill-fated romance.

And now, devastation at Helsvlakte.

After State soldiers are ambushed by Separatist guerillas, a critically
injured captain arrives at their inn. For the haunted man, whose face has
been disfigured in combat, the soulful music of Kitty’s harp will become
the elixir that brings him back to life.

But drama awaits offstage. A young man who witnessed the slaying of
his family and the torching of their farm hears of the captain’s residence at
the inn. He holds the captain responsible for the tragedy that befell his
loved ones, and sets out to find him.

The Inn at Helsvlakte is present-day troubadour Patricia Schonstein’s
bewitching tale of love and betrayal, family, human foibles and the theatre
of war.

Primo Verona is born with a gift of clairvoyance so strong that he is able to predict his own mother's death while still in her womb. Brought up on a rich diet of astronomy, philosophy, and storytelling, Primo accurately reads the futures of the local community who pay him in honey cake, tiramisu, and other delicacies. Pasquale Benvenuto is the owner of a beloved wine bar and delicatessen whose culinary reputation rests on recipes for the fruited breads and salamis his father taught him to make.

Together Primo and Pasquale form an easy friendship triangle with the beautiful Beatrice, Primo's wife and Pasquale's former girlfriend. But when Beatrice leaves her husband for her old love, Primo is devastated. He casts spells to spoil Pasquale's creations and to win back Beatrice -- but inadvertently conjures up an unexpected visitor.