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A Thousand Tales of Johannesburg is Harry Kalmer’s spellbinding ode to Johannesburg and its people. This is the story of Sara, who poses stiffly for a photo with her four children at Turffontein concentration camp in 1901, and of Abraham, who paints the street names on Johannesburg’s kerbs. It is the tale of their grandson Zweig, a young architect who has to leave Johannesburg when he falls in love with the wrong person, and of Marceline, a Congolese mother who flees to the city only to be caught up in a wave of xenophobic violence. Spanning more than a hundred years, A Thousand Tales of Johannesburg is a novel that documents and probes the lives of the inhabitants of this incomparable African city – the exiled, those returning from exile, and those who never left.
Although widely known as the Afrikaner communist who saved Nelson Mandela from the gallows, very little is known about Bram Fischer the man. Fischer was a respected Senior Advocate at the Johannesburg Bar who chose to side with the oppressed and went underground to join the armed struggle. He was arrested on 5 November 1965 after almost ten months on the run. ‘I owed it to the political prisoners, to the banished, to the silenced and to those under house arrest not to remain a spectator, but to act.’ These words spoken by Bram Fischer in his statement from the dock during his treason trial were followed by a life sentence. Scion of a proudly Afrikaner family that included a prime ministe...
The Book of War tells the story of a child who comes to manhood in the forge of war. With inescapable prophecies locked quietly in the terse lines, it shines an uneasy light on how South Africa started to become what it is.
Willem Prins wanders the streets of Paris, disillusioned and glum. Once, he showed great promise as a South African writer of distinction, but years of disappointment have left their mark. Drowning himself in the Seine may well be the only option left to drive up his book sales. His reason for being in Paris – the French translation of an erotic novel he wrote under a pseudonym – is not exactly something to be proud of. He is no stranger to Paris. An ex-wife of his (one of three) lives in the city with his eldest son, a young man who barely knows his father. Willem finds an unlikely companion in Jackie, a young South African working as an au pair in the city, a woman old enough to be his daughter. Together, the two of them will face the chaos of the terror attacks on Friday the thirteenth in Paris. You Lost Me is bestselling author Marita van der Vyver’s thirteenth novel, a story about life’s thunder clouds and the bonds between us that offer shelter. It is a tale of disillusionment and loss, told with warmth and wicked humour.
This encyclopaedia will be an indispensable resource and recourse for all who are thinking about cities and the urban, and the relation of cities to literature, and to ways of writing about cities. Covering a vast terrain, this work will include entries on theorists, individual writers, individual cities, countries, cities in relation to the arts, film and music, urban space, pre/early and modern cities, concepts and movements and definitions amongst others. Written by an international team of contributors, this will be the first resource of its kind to pull together such a comprehensive overview of the field.
An all inclusive study of Netherlandic culture.
Uncovers the story of how the politics of queer sexuality have played out in the struggle for multiracial democracy in South Africa
“An original and beautiful book. It suggests that the surest way to liberate ourselves is through the power of our ideas.” —Nelson Mandela Foundation “This is not just one of those books that makes you think. It challenges you to think. It demands that you think, and to beware of all those obstacles that would stop you from trusting your instincts and finding an idea.” —Lee Clow, Global Director of Media Arts, TBWA\Chiat Day As an award-winning playwright, author, and Worldwide Creative Director of TBWA, John Hunt has witnessed again and again the power of original thinking to transform both companies and individuals. In The Art of the Idea, Hunt addresses everyone from the globa...
One of the most striking features of cultural life in South Africa has been the extent to which one area of cultural practice - theatre - has more than any other testified to the present condition of the country, now in transition between its colonial past and a decolonized future. But in what sense and how far does the critical force of theatre in South Africa as a mode of intervention continue? In the immediate post-election moment, theatre seemed to be pursuing an escapist, nostalgic route, relieved of its historical burden of protest and opposition. But, as the contributors to this volume show, new voices have been emerging, and a more complex politics of the theatre, involving feminist ...