When we meet someone, one of the things we notice is the colour of their skin. But what can someone's skin colour tell us about them? Despite what some people say, your skin means very little! Inside we're all the same.

Join Njabulo, Aisha, Tim, Chris and Roshni as they discover why humans have different skins, and how people's thinking about skin colour has changed throughout history. Skin We Are In is a celebration of the glorious human rainbow, both in South Africa and beyond.

One of South Africa's best-selling authors, Sindiwe Magona, has teamed up with well-known American anthropologist, Nina G. Jablonski, and award-winning illustrator Lynn Fellman to create a much-needed book about race and skin colour – for children. Magona has written a story of five friends as they explore and discuss the skin they are in. The scientific narrative, written by Jablonski, expands and supports the conversation topics generated by the children's adventure.

These essays bring to life many facets of Magona’s personal history, her deepest convictions, love for her country and belief in her ability to activate change. They are a meaningful supplement to her fictional works, while offering insightful responses to the conditions that inspired them.

Sindiwe Magona is a celebrated South African writer, storyteller and motivational speaker known mainly for her autobiographies, biographies, novels, short stories, poetry and children’s books. I Write the Yawning Void is a collection of essays that highlight her engagement with writing that span the transition from apartheid to the post-apartheid period and addresses themes such as HIV/Aids, language and culture, home and belonging.

Magona worked as a teacher, domestic worker and spent two decades working for the United Nations in the United States of America. She has received many awards for her fearless writing ‘truth to power’. Her written work is often informed by her lived experience of being a black woman resisting subjugation and poverty.

These essays bring to life many facets of Magona’s personal history as well as her deepest convictions, her love for her country and despair at the problems that continue to plague it, and her belief in her ability to activate change. They demonstrate Magona’s engaging storytelling and mastery of the essay form which serve as meaningful supplements to her fictional works, while simultaneously offering insightful responses to the conditions that inspired them.

When The Village Sleeps is a visionary novel about what the loss of identity and dignity can do to people afflicted by decades of brokenness.

Told through the lives and spirits of four generations of amaTolo women, including The Old, who speak wisdom with ever-increasing urgency, it moves between the bustling township setting of Kwanele and the different rhythms of rural village life. It recalls the sweeping sagas of the great A.C. Jordan and the Dhlomo brothers and invokes the poetry of S.E.K. Mqhayi, while boldly exploring urgent and contemporary issues.

An ode to the complex strengths of South African women, When The Village Sleeps is also a powerful call to respect the earth that nurtures human life, and to live in self-sufficiency and harmony with the environment and each other.

The Five Firm Friends – Edith, Cordelia, Amanda, Doris and Beauty – are five sassy career women who confront life head- on. But when Beauty suddenly becomes ill and, after six short weeks, passes away, their world is thrown into confusion. On her deathbed Beauty begs Amanda to promise her one thing – that she and the rest of the FFF will not waste their lives as she has done. All because of an unfaithful husband ... ‘Ukhule,’ she begs of Amanda. May you live a long life, and may you become old.

Beauty’s Gift is a moving tale of how four women decide to change their own fate as well as the lives of those closest to them. This is Sindiwe Magona at her very best – writing about social issues, and not keeping quiet. Speak up, she says to women in Africa. Stand up, and take control of your own lives.

Two acclaimed South African artists offer a cross-generational dialogue on history, memory, and the power of self-narration Three decades after the dismantling of apartheid began, South Africa’s so-called “born free� generation has reached adulthood and its artists have used their work to navigate their difficult inheritance. At the same time, the historical distance between their experience and that of an older generation grows. This book brings together two of South Africa’s most acclaimed contemporary artists to reflect upon this moment. In their respective practices, Sue Williamson (b. 1941) and Lebohang Kganye (b. 1990) incorporate oral histories into film, photographs, installations, and textiles to consider how, just as formal statements determine collective histories, so the stories our elders tell us shape family narratives and personal identities. Exploring the complexities involved in the passing down of memories, their works implicitly and explicitly address racial violence, social injustice, and intergenerational trauma. This richly illustrated catalogue features essays that consider themes of voice, testimony, ancestry, and care, and a dialogue between Kganye and Williamson that explores how art can mobilize the healing powers of conversation. Distributed for the Barnes Foundation Exhibition Schedule: The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia (March 5–May 21, 2023)

These enthralling stories are told for South Africa's children. They are about their own everyday experiences and other magical fantasies in the dream-filled world of childhood. If adults appear at all, they do so along with children who are the main focus in this series. We are growing Stages 1, 2 and 3 are available in IsiXhosa, IsiZulu, Sesotho, Setswana, Sepedi, IsiNdebele, Xitsonga, SiSwati and Tshivenda. These stages are also available in English and Afrikaans for readers to discover the joy of reading in an additional language.

In August 1993, Fulbright scholar Amy Biehl was killed in Cape Town by a group of black teenagers incited by an upsurge in 'anti-white' sloganeering. She died just a few metres away from Sindiwe Magona's house. One of the boys held responsible for the killing was her neighbour's son. Mother To Mother takes the form of an epistle to Amy Biehl's mother.

Sindiwe Magona imagines how easily it might have been her own son caught up in the violence of that day. She writes about their lives in a colonised society that not only allowed, but also perpetuated violence against women and impoverished black South Africans.

The result is not an apology for murder, but an exquisitely written exploration of the lives of ordinary people in the apartheid years.

Sindiwe Magona's poems conspire with her. Even years after being written, they still seem warm from her lips, and it is this residue of her telling them that draws you into their confidence. From the languid innocence of the poems about her village, to her shattering images of Africa at war, Magona leads you headlong into her fireside circle where archetypes flicker like shadows on a face that has seen, and been. Please, Take Photographs! is defiant and tender, horrific and homely, at once irreverent, outspoken and beautiful.

Wayeyinkwenkwan’ ephaphileyo uLusapho. Yonk’ imihl’ ekuseni, wayekhaphel’ iinkomo zikayise azis’ emadlelweni. Le nkwenkwe yayimthanda kunen’ uyise yaye izithanda neenkomo zakhe. Ngenye imini, lo malusi waqaphela ukuba kwakukho ithole angalaziyo kwezo nkomo zakowabo azalusileyo. Lingelihle ngako elo thole. USoyiso wayengazange walibona elinjal’ ubuhle ithole ngaphambili.

In August 1993, Fulbright scholar Amy Biehl was killed by a group of black youths. "Mother to Mother" was provoked by that tragedy.;The killer's mother addresses the mother of the victim and tries to gain an understanding of her son by recalling both his life and hers within a world of apartheid. Magona, who grew up in a township of Cape Town, now lives in New York and works for the UN.

The Ugly Duckling retold by Sindiwe Magona and illustrated by Natalie Hinrichsen. The poor ugly duckling looks very different from the other ducklings. His duck family tease him and make him feel unwanted even though he simply wants to be loved and belong. So he runs away and sets off on a long and lonely journey. Will he ever be loved and accepted for who he is?

Le yenye yengxenye yamabali engencwadi zikaThemba apho kufundiswa khona abafundi abangathethi siXhosa. Le ncwadi inamagama alula kwaye iyonwabisa kulowo oyifundayo. Ezinye incwadi zika Themba zezi: Ibhola ka Themba, UThemba uneminyaka emihlanu. These stories are light, entertaining and have simple vocabulary for first time isiXhosa readers. The book provides assistance with sentence structuring and translations into English at the back. Others in the series are: Ibhola ka Themba, UThemba uneminyaka emihlanu.

These enthralling stories are told for South Africa's children. They are about their own everyday experiences and other magical fantasies in the dream-filled world of childhood. If adults appear at all, they do so along with children who are the main focus in this series. We are growing Stages 1, 2 and 3 are available in IsiXhosa, IsiZulu, Sesotho, Setswana, Sepedi, IsiNdebele, Xitsonga, SiSwati and Tshivenda. These stages are also available in English and Afrikaans for readers to discover the joy of reading in an additional language.