A group of passengers is huddled in a Toyota Quantum about to embark on a treacherous expedition to the City of Gold. Amongst them is Gugulethu, who is hoping to be reconciled with her mother; Dumisani, an ambitious young man who believes he will strike it rich, Chamunorwa and Chenai, twins running from their troubled past; and Portia and Nkosi, a mother and son desperate to be reunited with a husband and father they see once a year.They have paid a high price for the dangerous passage to what they believe is a better life; an escape from the vicious vagaries of their present life in Bulawayo. In their minds, the streets of Johannesburg are paved with gold but they will have to dig deep to get close to any gold, dirtying themselves in the process.Told with brave honesty and bold description, the stories of the individual immigrants are simultaneously heart-breaking and heart-warming.

    In April of 1994, the Rwandan government, aided by trained paramilitary militias and Hutu citizens, initiated an ethnic massacre aimed at eliminating the Tutsis. Just nine-years-old and a Tutsi herself, Jeanne faced a grave reality. Over the course of 100 days, she and her sisters were forced to survive in the wilderness with groups of bloodthirsty militiamen hunting them. After months of slaughter, she discovered nearly all her adult relatives including her parents, along with one million others were killed. Surviving the genocide was only the beginning.At 14 years old, Jeanne found herself in an American classroom learning a new language while carrying the deep wounds caused by the horror she witnessed and years of abuse as an orphan in Rwanda prior to being adopted by a family that moved to the United States. As she grew into adulthood, journaling became her cathartic release. She was determined to create a better life for herself and went on to attend college and then earn her master's degree from Eastern Washington University. Upon graduating, Jeanne met a kindred spirit, her now husband, Paul, who also suffered childhood abuse. Together, they attended counseling, grew closer and found their deep passion for helping children who have suffered situations similar to their own and work to prevent future abuses. For the past ten years, Jeanne has served as an adoption counselor, and most recently released her memoir, A Voice in the Darkness. The book recounts her loss of innocence and fight for survival. It also provides hope that good deeds can come from dark days and by giving others a voice, many can benefit. Now, Jeanne uses her story to advocate for orphans through her nonprofit and her hope is to raise awareness for orphans and shine a light on an extremely ominous time in human history.(To purchase an author signed copy or donate to orphans visit www.avoiceinthedarkness.org )

    In an age of aggressive colonial expansion, land dispossession and forced labour, these men believed in a constitutional system that respected individual rights and freedoms, and they used the law as an instrument against injustice. The book follows the lives, ideas and careers of Henry Sylvester Williams, Alfred Mangena, Richard Msimang, Pixley ka Isaka Seme, Ngcubu Poswayo and George Montsioa, who were all members of the ANC. It analyses the legal cases they took on, explores how they reconciled the law with the political upheavals of the day, and considers how they sustained their fidelity to the law when legal victories were undermined by politics. The Land Is Ours shows that these lawyers developed the concept of a Bill of Rights, which is now an international norm. The book is particularly relevant in light of current calls to scrap the Constitution and its protections of individual rights: it clearly demonstrates that, from the beginning, the struggle for freedom was based on the idea of the rule of law.

    In this crowded and often hostile place, she must carve out her new existence, always protecting her mute brother Hagos.A moving portrait of a woman of courage and intelligence, an insider’s view of the textures of life in a refugee camp, and a compelling story of exile, survival and love, Silence is My Mother Tongue bears vivid testimony to the power of imagination and illusion and the infinite reach of human minds to reinvent themselves.Both intimate and epic, Sulaiman Addonia’s extraordinary, subversive and sensual second novel dissects society’s ability to wage war on its own women and explores the stories we must tell to survive in a broken, inhospitable environment.

    Now in book form for the first time, Meditations Across The King’s River is inspired by James’s travels throughout the Caribbean and West Africa as an Ifa priest. Here, readers will find hope, encouragement, and wisdom to sustain them on their soul’s journey.

    This is the true story underlying this tale of historical fiction. People move history. A lonely wife works as a secretary for an important French general while her husband serves as a Vichy diplomat in Nazi Germany. A young American diplomat has a secret mission. A French counterespionage agent and his alluring lady friend have a score to settle. A slinky German foreign correspondent charms her way into the top social circles of Algiers. A Nazi diplomat has perverse tastes while his sadistic Gestapo bodyguard keeps blackmailers at bay. Refugees and adventurers, Vichy officers, German armistice officials, and American diplomats jockey for position as Sunday dinner at the posh Hotel Aletti approaches -- on December 7, 1941.

    The series seeks to identify the best poetry written by African poets working today, and it is especially interested in featuring poets who have not yet published their first full-length book of poetry.The eleven poets included in this box set are: Leila Chatti, Saddiq Dzukogi, Amanda Holiday, Omotara James, Yalie Kamara, Rasaq Malik, Umniya Najaer, Kechi Nomu, Romeo Oriogun, Henk Rossouw, and Alexis Teyie.

    A poetry novella

    Before my body became the property of maggots, I had no wisdom in me. But when I joined the ancestors, wisdom became my companion. I have come to you as a friend, and a guide for your thoughts … My duty is to teach you the message I denied with my own life on earth. I have been a man of misfortunes. Yet my heart is not bitter. And that, I carry to Qamata as my prize.’The story is told through the eyes of a young Xhosa man, Phila, who, after being under immense mental and emotional pressure in the pursuit of his history and the history of his people, enters a sacred space of intense spiritual recognition between the living and the dead. He is visited by the spirit of ancestor Maqoma, who, while he lived, was the Xhosa chief at the forefront of fighting British colonialism in the Eastern Cape. Phila and Maqoma engage in spiritual conversations about culture, history, literature, religion, the past and contemporary South African life.Phila goes through what he describes as the triple ‘N’ condition – neurasthenia, narcolepsy and cultural ne plus ultra. This makes him feel far removed from events happening around him but gives him access to the analeptic memory of his people.

    Prepare for this new generation, prepare for the Afripolitan Generation.A revolution is taking place in the great marketplaces of the informal sector and it contains an unquantified scale and power as an economic engine and a way of life for the majority of our low income populations. The KasiNomic Revolution may still be a murmur in the streets, a grassroots economic groundswell, but it is the future of African economic activity.Kasi is the South African term for the township, a teeming conurbation of homes and businesses, entertainment venues and social meeting places. GG Alcock uses the term KasiNomics to describe the informal sectors of Africa, whether they are in the township, a rural marketplace, at a taxi rank or on a pavement in the shadow of skyscrapers.Brought up in a rural Zulu community, GG has learnt and shares the lessons of African culture, language, stick fighting, lifestyle and tribal politics, along with shared poverty and community, which have prepared him for accessing the great informal marketplaces of Africa. He is uniquely placed to uncover the extraordinary stories of kasi businesses which not only survive but excel, revealing a revolutionary entrepreneurship which is mostly invisible to the formal sector.KasiNomic Revolution is a story of kasi entrepreneurs on one side and, on the other, of great corporate successes and failures in the informal community. KasiNomic Revolution is at once a business book, and at the same time a deeply human book about the people and lives of rural and urban informal societies.KasiNomic Revolution is about the lessons of marketing, distribution, culture and modernity in an informal African world.Prepare for a KasiNomic Revolution.

    BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. How to go on in a world where everything is set against you? With hope? In fear? Or, in violent struggle? In this gripping and disturbing book, Richard Wright weaves his own childhood recollections with those of Bigger Thomas - a young black man trapped in a life of poverty in the slums of Chicago, and unwittingly involved in a wealthy woman's death - to paint a portrait of insurmountable oppression. Through the strange pride Bigger takes in his crime, Wright brings us to confront the systems of justice we blindly assume are always on our side. Selected from the books Black Boy and Native Son by Richard Wright