Book picks similar to
To Kill a Man's Pride: And Other Stories From Southern Africa by Norman Hodge
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Zikora
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - 2020
But it's Zikora's demanding, self-possessed mother, in town for the birth, who makes Zikora feel like a lonely little girl all over again. Shunned by the speed with which her ideal life fell apart, Zikora turns to reflecting on her mother's painful past and struggle for dignity. Preparing for motherhood, Zikora begins to see more clearly what her own mother wants for her, for her new baby, and for herself.©2020 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc, all rights reserved.
Shades
Marguerite Poland - 1993
You will sacrifice our rights in order to secure your peace with the Boers and shrug us off. It is for this expedience that men like Tom and Reuben and Sonwabo Pumami are dead. There will be thousands like them in the time to come. ' Against a backdrop of drought, the rinderpest pandemic, the South African War, the burgeoning gold-mining industry and the complex birth of the exploitative system of recruiting migrant labour, Shades explores the growing tensions between cultures in South Africa at the turn of the twentieth century and the deepening awareness of the black mission-educated elite, empowered by the printing press, of the need to articulate their political and spiritual beliefs. Set within the microcosm of an isolated Eastern Cape mission, Shades is not only a love story and the chronicle of a family but a sensitive and perceptive insight into the country's wider conflicts. It explores the slow but inexorable destruction of the fabric of a community, the assault on its traditions and the struggle to reconcile two faiths: the Christian and the traditional beliefs of the amaXhosa in their ancestral shades. It is the story of those far-sighted enough to seek convergence and those destined to undermine its wisdom. Primarily, Shades is an intimate tale of love, friendship, acceptance and profound loss: of life, of faith and of belonging.
Dreams in Black Static: Eight Stories
Ambrose Ibsen - 2020
After watching it, one of them vanishes...A heart transplant recipient gets much more than he bargained for when he digs into his donor's sinister past...Mourning the death of their son, a young couple is plunged into madness after encountering something otherworldly in the wilderness...DREAMS IN BLACK STATIC is a collection of eight terrifying stories by Ambrose Ibsen, author of The Haunting of Beacon Hill and Asylum. The tales included are:"Me and Mr. Ray" **"Decatur Road" **"Dreams in Black Static" **"Distortional Addict" **"Trim" **"Subterrane Dream" **"Orchard""The Uncanny" **** = Appearing in print for the first time
Stealing Water: A Secret Life in an African City
Tim Ecott - 2008
But just six months after arriving, the family was bankrupt and evicted from their home. Funny, witty and affecting, this is a very different African memoir about how the worst of times can become the most valuable period of a person’s life. (Warning - may contain strong language)
Hyena Dawn
Christopher Sherlock - 1991
Hard-headed and impetuous, Rayne Gallagher flees his native South Africa after a tragic accident and joins the Rhodesian Light Infantry. He is embroiled in a war in which he has neither interest or cause when, unable to resist the lure of danger, he is recruited to lead a mission for the CIA in Mozambique. Amassed at the port of Beira is a vast military force led by Russian General Vorotnikov, which is preparing to invade Rhodesia. The general's grand scheme will shatter British plans for a peaceful transition from colony to democracy and create a major political and economic base for the USSR on South Africa's borders. Gallagher and a select group of mercenaries must ensure that the invasion never takes place. Theirs is a fight to the death - with the future of the whole of Southern Africa in the balance.
Of Mice and Me
Mishka Shubaly - 2014
He had a beautiful new girlfriend and sudden prosperity as an author. But when he adopts an orphaned infant mouse, his world is turned on its head. The mouse comes to symbolize everything left unresolved in his life — his relationship with his divorced parents, his fear of family and commitment, and his inability to feel true happiness and love. By turns hilarious and moving, Mishka Shubaly’s latest Kindle Single captures the journey we all take in life — from being loved, to giving love. Cover by Adil Dara.
All Things Wild And Wonderful
Kobie Krüger - 1996
After eleven years in the remote Mahlangeni region they are transferred, first to Crocodile Bridge and then to Pretorius Kop. Fully at peace in the wild and lonely landscapes of the North, Kobie fears she will never adapt to the relatively people-populated southern area. It takes time, but eventually she is able to acknowlege that the move has shown her "other Edens" and has given her a store of the new and precious memories. Foremost among these memories is the unique experience of raising Leo, an abandoned lion cub. It is a facinating and emotional encounter with the king of the beasts, which brings her and her family equal measures of joy and sorrow.
African Women: Three Generations
Mark Mathabane - 1994
He shows the personal struggles each faced as a woman and how their lives were affected by apartheid and the struggle for independence. 16 pages of photos.
The State of the Art
Iain M. Banks - 1989
Here, Sma argues for contact with Earth, to try to fix the mess the human species has made of it. Another Culture citizen, Linter, goes native while Li, who is a Star Trek fan, argues that the whole "incontestably neurotic and clinically insane species" should be eradicated with a micro black hole. The ship Arbitrary has ideas, and a sense of humour, of its own.This limited first edition only includes the novella and no extra collections. It had a print of 400 numbered copies and comes in a slip-case signed by both author and cover artist.
A Short History of South Africa
Gail Nattrass - 2017
On the other hand, post-Apartheid dreams of progress and reform have, in part, collapsed into a morass of corruption, unemployment and criminal violence.A Short History of South Africa is a brief, general account of the history of this most complicated and fascinating country – from the first evidence of hominid existence to the wars of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries that led to the establishment of modern South Africa, the horrors of Apartheid and the optimism following its collapse, as well as the prospects and challenges for the future.This readable and thorough account, illustrated with maps and photographs, is the culmination of a lifetime of researching and teaching the broad spectrum of South African history.Nattrass’s passion for her subject shines through, whether she is elucidating the reader on early humans in the cradle of humankind, or describing the tumultuous twentieth-century processes that shaped the democracy that is South Africa today.
The Republic of Gupta: A Story of State Capture
Pieter-Louis Myburgh - 2017
Since then, they have become embroiled in allegations of state capture, of dishing out cabinet posts to officials who would do their bidding, and of benefiting from lucrative state contracts and dubious loans. The Republic of Gupta investigates what the Gupta brothers were up to during Thabo Mbeki’s presidency and how they got into the inner circle of President Jacob Zuma. It shines new light on their controversial ventures in computers, cricket, newspapers and TV news, and coal and uranium mining. And it explores their exposure by public protector Thuli Madonsela, their conflict with finance minister Pravin Gordhan, and the real reasons behind the cabinet reshuffle of March 2017.Pieter-Louis Myburgh delves deeper than ever before into the Guptas’ business dealings and their links to prominent South African politicians, and explains how one family managed to transform an entire country into the Republic of Gupta.
A Beautiful Place to Die
Malla Nunn - 2008
It is 1952, and new apartheid laws have recently gone into effect, dividing a nation into black and white while supposedly healing the political rifts between the Afrikaners and the English. Tensions simmer as the fault line between the oppressed and the oppressors cuts deeper, but it's not until an Afrikaner police officer is found dead that emotions more dangerous than anyone thought possible boil to the surface.When Detective Emmanuel Cooper, an Englishman, begins investigating the murder, his mission is preempted by the powerful police Security Branch, who are dedicated to their campaign to flush out black communist radicals. But Detective Cooper isn't interested in political expediency and has never been one for making friends. He may be modest, but he radiates intelligence and certainly won't be getting on his knees before those in power. Instead, he strikes out on his own, following a trail of clues that lead him to uncover a shocking forbidden love and the imperfect life of Captain Pretorius, a man whose relationships with the black and coloured residents of the town he ruled were more complicated and more human than anyone could have imagined.The first in her Detective Emmanuel Cooper series, "A Beautiful Place to Die" marks the debut of a talented writer who reads like a brilliant combination of Raymond Chandler and Graham Greene. It is a tale of murder, passion, corruption, and the corrosive double standard that defined an apartheid nation. I
The Palace of Illusions
Kim Addonizio - 2014
In her new collection, gifted poet and novelist Kim Addonizio uses her literary powers to bring to life a variety of settings, all connected through the suggestion that things in the known world are not what they seem.In “Beautiful Lady of the Snow,” young Annabelle turns to a host of family pets to combat the alienation she feels caught between her distracted mother and ailing grandfather; in “Night Owls,” a young college student’s crush on her acting partner is complicated by the bloodlust of being half-vampire; in “Cancer Poems,” a dying woman turns to a poetry workshop to make sense of her terminal diagnosis and final days; in “Intuition,” a young girl’s sexual forays bring her closer to her best friend’s father; and in the collection’s title story, a photographer looks back to his youth spent as a young illusionist under the big tent and his obsessive affair with the carnival owner’s wife.The stories in this collection have appeared in journals ranging from Narrative Magazine to The Fairy Tale Review, and include the much loved "Ever After," which was featured on NPR's "Selected Shorts."Distracted parents, first love, the twin forces of alienation and isolation: the characters in The Palace of Illusions all must contend with these challenges, trafficking in the fault lines between the real and the imaginary, often in a world not of their making.
All Things, All at Once
Lee K. Abbott - 2006
Abbott, "Cheever's true heir, our major American short story writer" (William Harrison).Here are stories about fathers and sons, stories about men and women, and stories about the relationships between men by one of our most gifted story writers. The narrator of "The Who, the What and the Why," begins breaking into his own house as a sort of therapy after his daughter dies. In "The Human Use of Inhuman Beings," the main character realizes that his closest relationship is to an angel, who appears to him only to announce the death of loved ones. All Things, All at Once reminds us why Lee K. Abbott is to be treasured: his perfect pitch for tales of hapless Southwesterners, his way with sympathetic irony, his eye that skillfully notes the awkward humiliations—common heartbreak, fractured families—and records it all in lyrical, affectionate language. In tales new and from previous collections Abbott examines lived life and the lies we necessarily tell about it.