Books set in South Africa (9)


1.
A Dry White Season

A Dry White Season by Andre Brink EN

Rating: 4     1 Vote
Description:
As startling and powerful as when first published more than two decades ago, André Brink's classic novel, A Dry White Season, is an unflinching and unforgettable look at racial intolerance, the human condition, and the heavy price of morality. Ben Du Toit is a white schoolteacher in suburban Johannesburg in a dark time of intolerance and state-sanctioned apartheid. A simple, apolitical man, he believes in the essential fairness of the South African government and its policies—until the sudden arrest and subsequent "suicide" of a black janitor from Du Toit's school. Haunted by new questions and... continue
Recommended: 10 Jan 2023

2.
Boyhood

Boyhood by J.M. Coetzee EN

0 Ratings
Recommended: 08 Mar 2023

3.

Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton EN

Rating: 5     2 Votes
Description:
The heroine in this actor's tour-de-force is an ordinary middle class English housewife. As she prepares egg and chips for dinner, she ruminates on her life and tells the wall about her husband, her children, her past, and an invitation from a girlfriend to join her on holiday in Greece to search for romance and adventure. Ultimately, Shirley does escape to Greece, has an "adventure" with a local fisherman and decides to stay. This hilariously engaging play was a hit in London and New York, performed by Pauline Collins, who later recreated her role on film garnering an Oscar nomination.

4.

Long Walk to Freedom : The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela by Nelson Mandela EN

Rating: 4.1     14 Votes
Description:
The riveting memoirs of the outstanding moral and political leader of our time, A LONG WALK TO FREEDOM brilliantly re-creates the drama of the experiences that helped shape Nelson Mandela's destiny. Emotive, compelling and uplifting, A LONG WALK TO FREEDOM is the exhilarating story of an epic life; a story of hardship, resilience and ultimate triumph told with the clarity and eloquence of a born leader. 'Burns with the luminosity of faith in the invincible nature of human hope and dignity ... Unforgettable' Andre Brink 'Enthralling ... Mandela emulates the few great political leaders such as L... continue

5.
Sit Down and Listen

Sit Down and Listen: Stories from South Africa by Ellen Kuzwayo EN

Rating: 4     1 Vote
Description:
'For so many years now,' writes the author of this delightful collection, 'we have owned our stories while owning so little else.'

Ellen Kuzwayo's autobiography Call Me Woman was an international bestseller. At last we hear her extraordinarily distinct voice again, this time in a series of stories culled from her rich personal experience as community leader, social worker, teacher and black woman in South Africa.

These tales explore the complex life of contemporary black South Africa through the traditional form of story-telling. But the stories themselves are no... continue
Recommended: 23 Apr 2023

6.

The Expedition to the Baobab Tree by Wilma Stockenstrom EN

Rating: 5     2 Votes
Description:
Wearily, I take the path to the river, there in the cool to fill my being with the sounds of my sister-being, to refresh myself in the modest scents of pigeonwood and mitzeerie, to let my gaze end in a tangle of monkey ropes and fern arches and the slowly descending leaves, and to find rest, all day long, all night long. A young slave girl accompanies her owner on an expedition into the African interior in search of a mythical city. In unfamiliar terrain, the party gets lost. One by one, our narrator's companions disappear, leaving her to take refuge in the hollow of a baobab tree. There, she ... continue
Recommended: 08 Oct 2022

7.

The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay EN

Rating: 4     94 Votes
Description:
“The Power of One has everything: suspense, the exotic, violence; mysticism, psychology and magic; schoolboy adventures, drama.” –The New York Times “Unabashedly uplifting . . . asserts forcefully what all of us would like to believe: that the individual, armed with the spirit of independence–‘the power of one’–can prevail.” –Cleveland Plain Dealer In 1939, as Hitler casts his enormous, cruel shadow across the world, the seeds of apartheid take root in South Africa. There, a boy called Peekay is born. His childhood is marked by humiliation and abandonment, yet he vows to survive and conceives ... continue

8.
The White Giraffe

The White Giraffe by Lauren St. John EN

Rating: 3.5     24 Votes
Country: Africa / Zimbabwe flag Zimbabwe
Description:
Martine, 11, leaves England to live with her grandmother on a wildlife reserve in South Africa.
Recommended: 17 May 2023

9.
The Woman Next Door

The Woman Next Door by Yewande Omotoso EN

Rating: 4     10 Votes
Description:
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2017 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION Read this funny, sharp, delicately woven story of two women’s complicated relationship set in post-apartheid South Africa. Hortensia and Marion are next door neighbours in a charming, bougainvillea-laden Cape Town suburb. One is black, one white. Both are successful women with impressive careers behind them. Both have recently been widowed. Both are in their eighties. And both are sworn enemies, sharing hedge and hostility pruned with zeal. But one day an unforeseen event forces the women together. Could long-held mutual loathing transform into... continue
Genre
Recommended: 16 May 2023


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