Books and writers
Information about the latest books and the people behind them
The cutting room by Mary Watson
2014-05-20 Read Jonathan Amid's review of this book, published by Penguin SA.
C Louis Leipoldt’s orientation
2014-05-12 There has been speculation over the decades about the sexual orientation of the Afrikaans poet C Louis Leipoldt.
African Library: Tears of the Desert – A Memoir of Survival in Darfur
2014-04-29 Tears of the Desert – A Memoir of Survival in Darfur by Halima Bashir with Damien Lewis is a work of testimony and an important addition to the African archive.
DF Malan and the Rise of Afrikaner Nationalism by Lindie Koorts
2014-04-22 Paul Murray teaches history and holds a DPhil in the historical sciences from the University of Pretoria. Read his review of this important book.
Field guide to the spiders of South Africa by Ansie Dippenaar-Schoeman
2014-04-17 "When I see a spider, I want to kill it. Should I?" Ansie Dippenaar-Schoeman answers Naomi Meyer's questions.
Justice: A Personal Account by Edwin Cameron
2014-04-17 S'thembile Cele attended a book launch of Justice: A Personal Account and writes her contribution as part of a collaboration between LitNet and the University of Stellenbosch's Department of Journalism in 2014.
Photos: "Using the Pen for Justice – How writers transform society"
2014-04-01 "Giving voices to the voiceless." See photos of an event at Bibliophilia, sponsored by LAPA Publishers.
Using the Pen for Justice: How writers transform society
2014-03-25 "On Saturday 29 March, journalist and radio personality Nancy Richards will be in conversation with four authors around the theme 'using the pen for justice, how writers transform society'."
Tugging towards discovery
2014-03-10 Mark Winkler's An Exceptionally Simple Theory (of Absolutely Everything) is “an intensely absorbing and unapologetically apolitical tale”.
African Library: Intimate Strangers
2014-03-04 Intimate Strangers has connections with social anthropological research. Annie Gagiano explains.
Exclusive Books Summer Sale 2014
2014-02-18 Exclusive Books Summer Sale has over 115,000 books, averaging at R60 a book. It will begin with a Fanatics-only preview at all stores from 5pm on the 25th of February.
Bloody Satisfied – edited by Joanne Hichens
2014-01-24 “Five years later, in 2013, Hichens has once again edited and collected various storytelling voices under the title Bloody Satisfied: short.sharp.stories. The collection is the inaugural anthology produced in conjunction with the National Arts Festival. Will you be bloody satisfied after reading these stories?”
South African Flowering Trees – A botanical adventure through history
2014-01-14 Many books have been written about trees, but South African Flowering Trees – a botanical adventure through history makes a good effort at giving a complete picture.
What Hidden Lies: Crime from up close
2014-01-10 "In Greek mythology, Persephone is the queen of the underworld. In the brilliant debut novel by celebrated scriptwriter and script editor Michelle Rowe, detective Persephone (Persy) Jonas ... is the plucky young woman tasked with navigating the underworld of a community where little is as it appears."
The Spiral House by Claire Robertson
2014-01-03 “Claire Robertson’s extensively researched debut novel, The Spiral House, comes after thirty years spent working as a journalist. The novel has garnered praise from various quarters, unsurprisingly, since it seems to engage every nerve and fibre of one’s body and mind, so absorbing is its arc.”
Reader's review: Black Widow Society
2014-01-03 "If anyone dared to say that the burgeoning South African crime fiction scene was light on inventiveness, over-politicised, almost exclusively cornered by Cape writers and lacking in contributions from black female writers, then Angela Makholwa offers a decidedly tart response with her latest novel, Black Widow Society."
African Library: Harare North by Brian Chikwava
2013-12-18 Chikwava’s Harare North ... presents readers with an evocation of conflicted Zimbabwean identities ... and with making lives for themselves in Britain, where so many of their compatriots have inserted themselves ... (T)hey have mockingly re-named London 'Harare North' (Johannesburg being known as 'Harare South')."
Skinned by Antjie Krog
2013-12-04 "The poet thus becomes the text, inhabits the text and becomes part of the articulations and rhythms of the text." Franci Vosloo discusses why Skinned is a good representation of Krog's oeuvre and the essence of Krog's poetics.