Antjie Krog het baie teenkanting gekry vir haar boek Begging to be Black, maar “die eerlikheid en deeglikheid waarmee sy die onderwerp aanpak, is bewonderenswaardig”.

Só skryf Gert Coetzee in ‘n resensie in Volksblad. Hy meen die boek gaan daaroor “om te probeer verstaan hoe en hoekom swart mense is wie hulle is en dink soos hulle dink”.

Volgens Coetzee lewer die boek ‘n belangrike bydrae tot die debat oor ras, identiteit, nasiebou, diversiteit, versoening en herstellende geregtigheid in ons land.

Elke boek deur Antjie Krog, een van Suid-Afrika se handjie vol internasionaal gerekende skrywers, is ’n happening.

Ook Begging to Be Black, ondanks die bohaai wat dit ná bekendstelling (om die verkeerde redes?) ontketen het.

Dit is die boek waarin sy haarself as ’n wit Suid-Afrikaan in die plek van ’n swart Suid-Afrikaan in ons land met sy veelbewoë rasverlede stel.

Dus, hoe vir ’n witte om jouself swart te verbeel, swart te probeer word.

• Volledige resensie in Volksblad

• Begging to be Black tuisblad

Boekbesonderhede

• Begging to be Black deur Antjie Krog
  EAN: 9781770220706
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If it’s early July in Georgia, it must be the Redneck Games – so why aren’t you there? That’s the premise of this unusual travel guide, which offers 365 days’ worth of adventures, festivals, parties and other off-the-wall experiences across the planet.

• Complete review in the Sunday Times

Book Details

• The Time, The Place by Sarah Woods
  EAN: 9781847735409
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IT’S great for a family to have a shared interest. We all have our own individual pastimes but we come together when it comes to the brilliant diversity of life, flora and fauna, of South Africa’s eco-system.

Naturally, we have ended up with a bookcase full of guides, some area-specific, others on birds, trees, mammals, succulents, insects, etc.

• Complete review at the Dispatch Online

Book Details

• Wildlife of South Africa: A photographic guide by Duncan Butchart
  EAN: 9781770076327
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Nicol is proving that hard-boiled, tough thrillers can be set, and set successfully, in South Africa. He is showing us a dangerous, lawless land where an awful lot of people have reasons to be seeking revenge and where laws are honoured in the breach.

• Complete review in the Witness (no paywall!)

Mace Bishop and Pylon Buso are back. The two private security specialists based in Cape Town have a new challenge: to stay alive and keep their families safe, while earning a living the only way they know how.

Killer Country is the second instalment in what will ultimately be the Revenge trilogy involving two former Umkhonto we Sizwe operatives-turned-gun runners and now – in democratic South Africa – bodyguards and fixers.

• Complete review at IOL Tonight

Book Details

• Killer Country by Mike Nicol
  EAN: 9781415201169
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With a talented journalist and a professor of botany as co-authors, this book has the right credentials for an informative, well-written read.

Heather Dugmore was first drawn into the spiritual world of muthi and myths by a sangoma who gave her shelter during a storm on the Wild Coast.

Intrigued by her wise host’s tales of mermaids and spirits, Dugmore says it nonetheless took a while before she realised the full significance of the encounter. The sangoma, it seems, realised at once.

• Complete review in the Dispatch Online

Book Details

• Muthi and Myths: From the African Bush by Heather Dugmore and Ben-Erik Van Wyk
  EAN: 9780958495493
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In hierdie resensie verdedig Rustum Kozain, Breyten Breytenbach se geloofwaardigheid. Hy meen dat Breytenbach se kritiek op Suid-Afrika gesien moet word as “sy eie lojale verset” en dat Breyten steeds beskou moet word as iemand wat diep lojaal is aan die “ideale van ’n breë anti-apartheidsbeweging”.

Breyten Breytenbach was eens op ’n tyd ’n liefling aan Suid-Afrika se Engelse liberale boesems weens sy kulturele en gewapende verset teen sy eie stam se hoof-ideologie. In die laaste paar jaar het hy egter heelwat omstredenheid ontlok, en veral in die Engelse pers.

In 2008 was daar groot moles oor ’n paar resensies van sy boek A Veil of Footsteps en sy nuwe boek, Notes From the Middle World (essays en twee mooi maar skroeiende gedigte), het reeds ’n geniepsige resensie in die Sunday Independent gekry. Miskien is die belangrikste essay hierin “Mandela’s Smile: Notes on South Africa’s Failed Revolution” wat in Desember 2008 in Harper’s Magazine in Amerika verskyn het. Plaaslik het dit, onverbasend genoeg, wel ophef gemaak – maar deur te fokus op selektiewe, sensasionele uittreksels. Sy kritici het (tipies) sy geloofwaardigheid probeer bevraagteken as “voormalige’’ Suid-Afrikaner, nou “uitlander’’. Hy’t geen reg op kritiek nie! Hy woon dan nie eens meer hier nie!

• Lees die volledgie resensie in Rapport

Boekbesonderhede

• Notes from the Middle World deur Breyten Breytenbach
  EAN: 9781931859912
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Die interessante, kleurryke lewens van sogenaamde “Angola-Boere” wat hul in 1880’s in Angola gevestig het, word in die boek Afrikaners in Angloa “treffend beskryf en ontleed”.

Só skryf André Wessels in ‘n resensie op Die Burger se Boekeblok. Die skrywer van die boek, Nicol Stassen, het vreeslik baie bronne geraadpleeg en dié mense se lewens nagespoor tot by 1975. Die laaste Anglo-Boere het Angola in hierdie jaar verlaat.

Hierdie gegewens, wat ook met kaarte en foto’s aangevul word, is volgens Wessels geweldig interessant en hy beveel dit aan vir enigeen wat in geskiedenis belangstel.

Nicol Stassen is welbekend as die ­besturende direkteur van Protea Boekhuis?– ’n uitgewery wat die afgelope sowat 12 jaar ’n groot ­aantal betekenisvolle boeke uit­gereik het, insluitende talle Afrikaanse ­publikasies. In 2009 het Stassen ’n doktorsgraad in ­geskiedenis verwerf oor die ­Afrikaners wat dekades lank in Angola ­gebly het. Hierdie studie is nou as Afrikaners in Angola 1928-1975 gepubliseer .

In hierdie omvangryke publikasie word ’n oorsig gegee van die geskiedenis van die Dorslandtrekkers wat hulle, ná jare se swerftogte, in die 1880’s in Angola gevestig het. Angola as land word ook ontleed en word onder meer die rol van die omgewing, die Portugese besetting en kolonialisering van Angola, die bevolkingsamestelling van die land en die ekonomie bekyk.

• Lees die volledige resensie in Die Burger

• Afrikaners in Angola 1928-1975 tuisblad

Boekbesonderhede

• Afrikaners in Angola 1928-1975 deur Nicol Stassen
  EAN: 9781869193409
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Reading memoir can resemble a Tolstoyan train ride, one of those satisfying trips during which a passenger, a stranger to the others in his compartment, tells a tale filled with fascinating characters, intimate relationships and detailed pictures of the sociology and culture of his personal world. This month, I’ve been enjoying that kind of extraordinary ride with Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, a stranger to me until now.

His tone is conversational, his story compelling, and the Kenya-Uganda train that runs from the port of Mombasa across what was then called the White Highlands of Kenya, a constant presence, a symbol and reality both fearsome and alluring. Built by Indian labor, the railway was an important pathway for colonialism. We glimpse the tracks first in April of 1954 when Ngũgĩ’s older brother Good Wallace, who has joined the Mau Mau, flees the police. They remain a significant part of the landscape until 1954 when, after a rigorous academic exam, Ngũgĩ finally rides the train to Alliance High School, the best high school in Kenya – and ends his memoir.

• Complete review at The World

Further reviews

Kevin O’Kelly in Boston.com:

Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s memoir of growing up in British-ruled Kenya, “Dreams in a Time of War,’’ vividly evokes the colonial era as experienced by Africans, and the resulting clash of cultures that produced one of the most significant African writers of our time.

Set against the backdrop of World War II and the nation’s battle for independence, the work covers the period from Ngugi’s birth to his departure from his village for boarding school during his teens.

• Keep reading

Marie Arana in The Washington Post:

Toward the end of his strikingly frank memoir, “Dreams From My Father,” Barack Obama describes how his Kenyan grandfather came to marry his grandmother. A ruthless and demanding man, Hussein Onyango was so fussy about his hut that he rejected a number of wives because they weren’t tidy enough, beating them to within an inch of their lives and sending them back to their fathers. The first one he decided to keep was orderly enough, but, as it turned out, she could bear no children. During a night of drinking and revelry in a Nairobi dance hall, his masculinity was so ridiculed that he was prompted to take another wife — as was the country’s custom. He had a beautiful young woman abducted, negotiated a dowry with her father and brought her to live under his roof. This was the president’s grandmother, Akumu. Eventually, as “Dreams From My Father” tells it, Hussein Onyango brought yet a third wife into his hut, bestowing on Barack Obama Sr. an abundance of mothers. The pattern held into the next generation: Obama Sr., like his father, would also take three wives.

• Keep reading

Book Details

• Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir by Ngugi wa Thiong’o
  EAN: 9780307378835
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Local crime writers are painfully aware that they tread a self-immolating minefield of political correctness while they try to avoid racial stereotyping.

The good news, though, is that things are getting murkier and more real. Mike Nicol’s powerful second novel featuring black-and-white duo, Pylon Buso and Mace Bishop – former liberation struggle gun dealers, now in private security – depicts a South Africa where the running sores of ruthless cadre enrichment, state corruption, and casual violence causes even the tough guys to flinch.

• Complete review in the Sunday Times

Book Details

• Killer Country by Mike Nicol
  EAN: 9781415201169
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• Nairobi Heat by Mukoma wa Ngugi
  EAN: 9780143026174
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• Refuge by Andrew Brown
  EAN: 9781770220621
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SUMPTUOUS is exactly that from whichever angle you view it. A beautifully produced cookery book by Marlene van der Westhuizen with stunning photographs by Gerda Genis.

Van der Westhuizen shares her year between a small village in France, Charrox, and a studio in Cape Town. In both she teaches cookery.

• Complete review at the Dispatch Online

Book Details

• Sumptuous: Food from the heart of France to the Cape by Marlene van der Westhuizen
  EAN: 9781920075910
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