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Showing 1 - 25 of 276082 matches in Biography
On 10 June 1980, during a seemingly endless day of bloody fighting, 13
men of the South African Defence Force died and several more were
wounded after 61 Mechanised Infantry Battalion Group attacked a vast
complex of Swapo military bases in Angola.
‘I share to normalise talking about those shameful, hurtful things we
keep hidden. I share because shame loses its power when we find safe
spaces to share our truth … and when women heal, generations heal.’
Professor. Pundit. Public nuisance. In his columns, books and on social
media, Jonathan Jansen is prolific and he likes to speak his mind about
schools and universities, race, politics and our complex South African
society.
Francois van Coke span met die skryf van hierdie biografie saam met
Annie Klopper om in sy eie stem die gebeure te vertel wat hom as mens
en musikant gevorm het. Sy perspektief word gebied op als van
Fokofpolisiekar tot Van Coke Kartel, die sukses van “Toe vind ek jou”
en sy rol as afrigter op The Voice. Minder bekende en onbekende
verhale word ook vertel oor wilde partytjies, vuisgevegte, dwelms,
nagte in tronkselle, liefde, soberheid en pa-wees. Dít is sy stories,
hoe hý dit onthou.
In this autobiographical account of a lifetime spent observing, researching and photographing birds, Peter Steyn shares experiences that span some 70 years. His story starts and ends in Cape Town, South Africa, but in between we read about:
His detailed and fascinating memoir captures the author’s great enthusiasm for birds and their role in his shaping his life and experiences. Kingdom of Daylight: Memories of a Birdwatcher is well illustrated and features more than 400 photographs taken during Peter’s lifelong journey with birds.
South African born-and-raised Hollywood screenwriter Helena Kriel is researching the ancient text of the Kama Sutra for a movie she’s writing. At the same time, she is travelling to India to meet with sages and find answers to the universal challenges of sex and love. While searching for love in her doomed relationships, little does she know she will find her answers in caring for her dying brother, Evan, in South Africa. Set in the mid-1990s, South Africa is just emerging from the darkness of apartheid and bursting with vibrant chaos. The story zooms in on an intense year in the narrator’s life. It centres around the lively and eccentric South African Kriel family: Maya, the combative but inspired mother; Lexi, the sister recently returned from living in a temple in India; Ross, the younger brother diving with sharks; and Helena, the narrator, herself on a journey to understand love and death. At the heart of the story is Evan, her terminally ill 30-year-old gay brother, who has been keeping his illness a shameful secret. Conscious, sensitive, terrified and trying to hang onto sanity as his world changes, Evan becomes paralysed then finally goes blind as death draws ever closer. But it is Evan who leads the family through the fire. In living through her brother’s fight to stay alive, the narrator finds herself at the heart of a savage story, one she would not have chosen. How could she know when she set out to India to find ancient solutions to the modern problems of our age that her brother’s approaching death would be her greatest teacher? How could she imagine that dying brings everything to life? The Year Of Facing Fire is an astoundingly written memoir by one of South Africa’s finest writers. It traverses universal themes including love, death and sex, and finds value in the ordinary and great beauty in the uncertain.
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.
‘The freezing loneliness made one wish for death,’ journalist Joyce Sikakane-Rankin said of solitary confinement. With seven other women, including Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, she was held for more than a year. This is the story of these heroic women, their refusal to testify in the ‘Trial of Twenty-Two’ in 1969, their brutal detention and how they picked up their lives afterwards.
The year is 1976, and South Africa is gripped by a terrible lockdown – apartheid. Nelson Mandela is in prison on Robben Island; South Africa is isolated from the rest of the world, and revolution is in the air. Against this background, a young student at Johannesburg’s Wits University decides to try and take control of his life, and his destiny, and give himself a sense of purpose. He challenges himself to run South Africa’s most famous long-distance race, the grueling 90-kilometre Comrades Marathon. Little does he know that five years later he will win this most iconic of races and he will go on to be considered one of the greatest Comrades runners in the history of the race. In Winged Messenger, Bruce shares this 1976/77 training diary so that raw novices and experienced runners alike can follow the journey he took to his first Comrades. Novices particularly will enjoy reading about how he took his first stumbling, rudimentary steps and how, as an ordinary runner, he began to understand the demands of the race. He documents his mistakes, his successes and his progress towards his date with destiny in May 1977. Using his own experiences, he guides others, but particularly novices, on their quests to become winged messengers. This is a unique blend of both a training guide and a fascinating glimpse of the life of a young man in his quest to conquer both himself and South Africa’s greatest race.
Journalist Sarah Bullen and her filmmaker husband Llewellyn seemed like a golden couple, with successful careers and two lovely children. But then Llewellyn discovers that he has a brain tumour. As he pursues a shamanic path to fight the cancer, they are catapulted into a world of ritual and ceremony. With hospitals, surgery and treatments comes a wilder journey of spiritual searching. Then the impossible happens: she falls ill. While in a coma, Sarah travels through near-death and into other realms and worlds. She comes back with a message and a spark to follow – to choose joy over fear. It becomes a roadmap to allow her to write a new life story and call in a new way of living rooted in bliss, joy and love. Taking us from Hout Bay to the Mediterranean and back, Sarah’s story is in turn sad, funny and magical, filled with laughter and tears. From African rituals in the bush to a Greek island of sex and celebration, Love & Above is filled with wild rapture and infinite possibility.
In the shattered fantasy of rainbow-nation South Africa, there are many uncomfortable truths. Among these are family secrets - the legacies of traumas in the homes and bones of ordinary South African families. In this debut collection, feminist and Khoi San activist Kelly-Eve Koopman grapples with the complex beauty and brutality of the everyday as she struggles with her family legacy. She tries unsuccessfully to forget her father - a not-so-prominent journalist and anti-apartheid activist, desperately mentally ill and expertly emotionally abusive - who has recently disappeared, leaving behind a wake of difficult memories. Mesmerisingly, Koopman wades through the flotsam and jetsam of generations, among shipwrecks and sunken treasures, in an attempt at familial and collective healing. Sometimes tragic, sometimes hilarious, she faces up to herself as a brown, newly privileged "elder millennial", caught between middle-class aspirations and social justice ideals. An artist, a daughter, a queer woman in love, she is in pursuit of healing, while trying to lose those last 5 kilograms, to the great disappointment of her feminist self.
Born Karoline King in 1980 in Johannesburg South Africa, Sara-Jayne (as she will later be called by her adoptive parents) is the result of an affair, illegal under apartheid’s Immorality Act, between a white British woman and her black South African employee. Her story reveals the shocking lie created to cover up the forbidden relationship, and the hurried overseas adoption of the illegitimate baby, born during one of history’s most inhumane and destructive regimes. Killing Karoline follows the journey of the baby girl (categorised as ‘white’ under South Africa’s race classification system) who is raised in a leafy, middle-class corner of the South of England by a white couple. It takes the reader through the formative years, a difficult adolescence and into adulthood, as Sara-Jayne (Karoline) seeks to discover who she is and where she came from. Plagued by questions surrounding her own identity and unable to ‘fit in’ Sara-Jayne (Karoline) begins to turn on herself, before eventually coming full circle and returning to South Africa after 26 years to face her demons. There she is forced to face issues of identity, race, rejection and belonging beyond that which she could ever have imagined. She must also face her birth family, who in turn must confront what happens when the baby you kill off at a mere six weeks old, returns from the dead.
Die oorlewingstog van 'n dapper vrou. “ ʼn Kale vlakte waar my regterbors eens was. Ek maak my oë toe en laat my brein toe om te proe aan hierdie monumentale ding. Kanker schmanker, besluit ek. Ek is nog net soveel vrou soos voor die operasie. My vroulikheid het toe al die tyd nie in my bors gesit nie. Dit sit in my kop, in my hart, in daardie onmeetbare, onaantasbare iets wat die gees genoem word.” In hierdie aangrypende boek deel die bekende spanningsverhaalskrywer Madelein Rust die intiemste besonderhede van haar reis met borskanker. Dit is ʼn brutaal eerlike vertelling wat haar belewenis van die siekte met patos en humor uitbeeld. Lesers verkry ʼn eiesoortige blik op die fisieke ervarings van borskankerstryders sowel as die ewig veranderende binnewêreld van dié wat teen die siekte veg. Kanker schmanker! rus borskankerstryders toe met inligting wat nie altyd geredelik beskikbaar is nie en help hul geliefdes om die reis met kanker beter te verstaan. Dit is ʼn boek van hoop en triomf wat die leser hardop laat huil en laat lag. Dis 'n verhaal vir elkeen van ons wat ʼn stryd van enige aard stry.
When a thoughtless tweet by Zelda la Grange unleashed a storm, she was asked: ‘Have you learnt nothing from Nelson Mandela?’ This book is her answer. For years, she was the closest witness of Mandela’s interactions with people both famous and ordinary, and here she draws out his lessons on humility, respect, honesty, how to truly listen and what to do if you realise you have made a grave mistake, a lesson she herself had to learn the hard way.
Accessible and engaging short stories about Nelson Mandela, to celebrate 100 years since his birth. How do you retell the well-worn life story of a national icon? One way is this: a palimpsest of a hundred memories of the great man, revolutionary, world leader, and family figure, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth. Kate Sidley offers renewed and touching insight into Mandela by retelling humorous, heart-warming and momentous moments from his life, roughly chronologically, drawing from his own writing and the memories of contemporaries, historians and ordinary people. The reading experience is multi-varied and complex, touching and inspiring, like Madiba himself. 100 Mandela Moments is divided into sections, according to the many roles Mandela played in his lifetime: the school boy, the student, the lawyer, the outlaw, the prisoner, the negotiator, the statesman, the elder. Each story or “moment” is short and encapsulates something about the man behind the legend, and the book can be read cover to cover or dipped into.
Mapetla Mohapi was a leading member of the Black Consciousness Movement, and the first to die in detention in 1976. Police produced a 'suicide note'. The note was later confirmed by a British expert as a forgery. Since then, his wife Nohle has worked tirelessly for justice. Zikhona Valela traces the politics of the time, the convergence of biographies that led to the brutal and tragic death of Mapetla Mohapi, and the effects on Nohle and the Mohapi family. A shocking and necessary book.
Actor and musician Ian Roberts is something of a South African icon,
renowned for his roles as the rugged Boer fighter Sloet Steenkamp in
the TV series Arende and as Boet in the immortal and immensely popular
Castrol advertisements. In Free Spirit he looks back on his long and
illustrious career in which he became known for having a flair for
languages and acting from the gut.
Die motiewe agter gesinsmoorde is dikwels vreemder as fiksie. Tergende vrae kan deur psigiaters beantwoord word ... of dalk nie. Deur na verskeie gevalle van gesinsmoord te kyk gooi hierdie boek ’n bietjie lig in 'n baie donker plek. Met onder meer die stories van die Lotters wat gebreinspoel was tot moord op hul ouers en die Van Breda bylmoorde.
As a young underground cadre in 1980s Durban, Moe Shaik endured detention, following orders for the good of the organisation. Little did he know that this stint in the police cells would lead to his lifelong relationship with The Nightingale, a Special Branch policeman turned enemy secret agent whose files were so accurate, Oliver Tambo named them The Bible. Shaik morphs from being a timid optometrist to leading a critical, high-tech intelligence operation, supplying information to the ANC top brass in exile and in South Africa. He becomes party to the secrets of both the state and ANC operatives. This thrilling first-person account brings into sharp focus the role of Jacob Zuma, Shaik's brother Schabir and other players, and sheds new light on some of South Africa's most turbulent years.
Zola Mahobe came from Soweto and turned himself into a jet-setting multimillionaire. He was a habitual bank robber. The founding father of present-day Mamelodi Sundowns transformed the soccer club to the elite of the first division. He meets Snowy Moshoeshoe who becomes his lover and partner in crime. After convincing Moshoeshoe to leave her nursing job to take up a job at Standard Bank Mahobe’s businesses start to grow. Dikgang Moseneke shares the story of how Mahobe often invited him and Willie Seriti to games. He often told them: ‘I am a man with many challenges. I like to travel with my lawyers and my gunman next to me.’ Mahobe and Moshoeshoe continue pilfering millions from Standard Bank for five years. The bank discovers their scheme and Mahobe is arrested in Botswana. The untold story of Mahobe is one of the biggest stories to come out of apartheid South Africa and compares with that of the notorious bank-robbing Stander Gang. This book is impossible to put down.
The healing power of life writing, one shared story at a time This Is How It Is a “refreshing, poignant and wide-ranging” (Helen Moffett) collection of real life experiences: 52 stories, prose and poetry, that tell of a man who is anxious about an HIV test; a child with an alarming nose for gossip and a girl who is saved by the enemy in a war zone. Some of the writers are grieving the loss of a child or struggling with addiction, abuse, bullying or betrayal. Most of these writers have never been published before. They wrote these stories primarily to bear witness to their lives and the troubled times in which we live. Putting traumatic experiences down on paper can help people work through shame, guilt and fear, releasing them from the traps they lay. Writing is sometimes able to turn a painful incident into something more manageable, even beautiful. Sharing stories can also heal both the writer and the reader. When we first meet a stranger, we make assumptions about them. When we hear of their life in their own words, we find that many of our negative assumptions are wrong. Often we discover that we are more alike than we are different. Our magnificent world is in trouble, much of it because we are not paying attention to what is right in front of us. When the facts don’t stir us to reconsider, story can. This anthology invites us to become curious and reflective rather than fearful and defensive. It encourages us to climb down from the ladder of hierarchy and competition and to join the circle of relationship and humanity by becoming vulnerable enough to share and listen to our own and each other’s half-hidden stories. But equally importantly, Bongani Kona, 2016 Caine Prize finalist, reminds us: “We forget that the most daring thing we can do is to allow ourselves to be seen. To stand before the world and to say this is who I am. This is how it is.” About THE LIFE RIGHTING COLLECTIVE: The Life Righting Collective (LRC) runs courses for anyone who wants to learn to write about their experiences. The approach promotes self-discovery, self-recovery and more effective communication. It raises funds to make courses available to those in need of sponsorship and to provide platforms for these life stories to be published. Sharing experiences with a wide readership can help reduce discrimination and promote mutual understanding. Visit the website: www.liferighting.com
Lenerd Louw shares his journey of learning and awakening. Jump is a book about Lenerd Louw's experiences including his playboy lifestyle in Cape Town, the difficulty and confusion when a massive internal shift occurred in him, the decision to walk away from it all, starting the outer journey all around the world whilst doing the tough deep inner journey at the same time. It includes his two-year period of celibacy at the start of his travels, his travels to fascinating places and his learnings at each place. It’s a story of personal expansion and awakening, of surrender, of trust and of transformation. He sees the same shift now happening to many people around him, be it ex colleagues, friends or new people he has met. He feels a calling to share his journey. The book is one way of doing that!
“Dis politici wat oorlog verklaar, nie ons nie. Ons het gedoen wat ons
geglo het ons moes doen en hulle [die vyand] ook . . .” – Marco
Caforio, ouddienspligtige
The gripping, jaw-dropping rise and fall of Sir Philip Green, the self-styled 'king of the high street'. Sir Philip Green is no stranger to scandal. He was once hailed one of Britain's best businessmen and had prime ministers and supermodels on speed dial. But his reputation came crashing down when Oliver Shah uncovered the truth behind his doomed BHS deal. The collapse of British Home Stores left 11,000 employees without jobs and put 20,000 people's pensions at risk. Green eventually paid £363m towards the company's £571m pension deficit, but it wasn't long before he found himself in trouble again. In October 2018, Green was named as the business figure at the heart of Britain's #MeToo scandal. With accusations of sexual and racial harassment flooding the press, and with Topshop's pension deficit rising to almost double the figure that toppled BHS, can the retail tycoon survive yet another scandal? In Damaged Goods, Oliver Shah, the award-winning journalist who first broke the BHS story, shines a light on Green's past and his uncertain future; this is the extraordinary account of the retail magnate Sir Philip Green's fall from grace.
After many years of serving the country and doing his part to help
rebuild South Africa, Dr Peter Friedland was given an opportunity to
serve as a member of Nelson Mandela’s medical team and helped to
monitor his hearing. |
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