Book picks similar to
Body Bereft by Antjie Krog
poetry
south-africa
afrikaans
african-literature
If You Want to Make God Laugh
Bianca Marais - 2019
Eight months pregnant, Zodwa carefully guards secrets that jeopardize her life.Across the country, wealthy socialite Ruth appears to have everything her heart desires, but it's what she can't have that leads to her breakdown. Meanwhile, in Zaire, a disgraced former nun, Delilah, grapples with a past that refuses to stay buried. When these personal crises send both middle-aged women back to their rural hometown to lick their wounds, the discovery of an abandoned newborn baby upends everything, challenging their lifelong beliefs about race, motherhood, and the power of the past.As the mystery surrounding the infant grows, the complicated lives of Zodwa, Ruth, and Delilah become inextricably linked. What follows is a mesmerizing look at family and identity that asks: How far will the human heart go to protect itself and the ones it loves?
99 Poems to Cure Whatever's Wrong with You or Create the Problems You Need
Sam Pink - 2019
99 to be exact. bleeding out to the backdrop of this new cartoon. a woodchuck in a tiny witch hat laughs at you, as you lay down, hands over your chest and think, 'perfect.' and a red light atop a powerline blinks in the distance to remind that there is no end, only one long try, deflate at your own pace. don't fight the freefall. 99 poems to cure whatever's wrong with you or create the problems you need. and yes, you need. im your fucking dad, honey. admit it, or we'll never get out of this alive.
The Sacketts Box 4 vols
Louis L'Amour - 1999
Matriarch Em shows women as strong as men. They fight for justice with fast guns, smooth tongues, and hammer fists, against harsh nature - desert, hurricane - and villains. A nose for gold and weakness for ladies bring trouble.
The Lost Boys of Bird Island: A shocking exposé from within the heart of the NP government
Mark Minnie - 2018
Serious allegations surface against three prominent National Party cabinet ministers, one of them the second-most powerful man in the country. They are, it is said, regularly abusing young boys on an island just off the coast of Port Elizabeth. From opposite ends of South Africa, a brave cop and a driven journalist investigate. Mark Minnie and Chris Steyn independently uncover evidence of a dark secret. But the case only surfaces briefly before it disappears completely. Thirty years later, the two finally connect the dots to expose this shocking story of criminality, cover-ups and official complicity in the rape and possible murder of children, most of them vulnerable and black.
New Selected Poems 1988-2013
Seamus Heaney - 2014
Together with its earlier, sibling volume, it completes the arc of a remarkable career.Shortly before his death in 2013, Seamus Heaney discussed with his publisher the prospect of a companion volume to his landmark New Selected Poems 1966-1987 aimed at presenting the second half of his career, 'from Seeing Things onwards', as he foresaw it. Although he was unable to complete a edition/selection, he left behind selections that have been followed here. New Selected Poems 1988-2013 reprints the author's chosen poems from his later years, beginning with his ground-breaking volume Seeing Things (1991), his two Whitbread Books of the Year, The Spirit Level (1996) and Beowulf (1999), and his multi-nominated, prize-winning volumes, Electric Light (2001), District and Circle (2006) and Human Chain (2010). The edition concludes with two posthumously published works.
Black Dog Summer
Miranda Sherry - 2014
Perhaps this is why I have not left yet. Perhaps I have no choice but to follow the story to its end.Compulsively readable and stylistically stunning, Black Dog Summer begins with a murder, a farmstead massacre, in the South African bush. Thirty-eight-year-old Sally is but one of the victims. Her life brutally cut short, she narrates from her vantage point in the afterlife and watches as her sister, Adele, her brother-in-law and unrequited love Liam, her niece Bryony, and her teenage daughter, Gigi, begin to make sense of the tragedy.A suspenseful drama focusing on marriage and fidelity, sisterhood, and the fractious bond between mothers and daughters, Black Dog Summer asks: In the wake of tragedy, where does all that dark energy linger? The youngest characters, Bryony and Gigi, cousins who are now brought together after Sally’s murder, are forced into sharing a bedroom. Bryony becomes confused and frightened by the violent energy stirred up and awakened by the massacre, while Gigi is unable to see beyond her deep grief and guilt. But they are not the only ones aware of the lurking darkness. Next door lives Lesedi, a reluctant witchdoctor who hides her mystical connection with the dead behind the façade of their affluent Johannesburg suburb.As Gigi finally begins to emerge from her grief, the fragile healing process is derailed when she receives some shattering news, and in a mistaken effort to protect her cousin, puts Bryony’s life in imminent danger. Now Sally must find a way to prevent her daughter from making a mistake that could destroy the lives of all who are left behind.Gorgeously written, with a pace that will leave readers breathless, Black Dog Summer introduces a brilliant new voice in fiction.
How Can Man Die Better: The Life of Robert Sobukwe
Benjamin Pogrund - 1990
His long imprisonment, restriction and early death were a major tragedy for our land and for the world.’ – Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Sobukwe On 21 March 1960, Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe led a mass defiance of South Africa’s pass laws. He urged blacks to go to the nearest police station and demand arrest. Police opened fire on a peaceful crowd in the township of Sharpeville and killed 69 people. The protest changed the course of South Africa’s history. Afrikaner rule stiffened and black resistance went underground. International opinion hardened against apartheid. Sobukwe, leader of the Pan-Africanist Congress, was jailed for three years for incitement. At the end of his sentence the government, fearful of his power, rushed the so-called ‘Sobukwe Clause’ through Parliament, to keep him in prison without a trial. For the next six years, Sobukwe was kept in solitary confinement on Robben Island, the infamous apartheid prison near Cape Town. On his release, Sobukwe was banished to the town of Kimberley with very severe restrictions on his freedom. He died there nine years later in February 1978. This book is the story of this South African hero – the lonely prisoner on Robben Island. It is also the story of the friendship between Robert Sobukwe and Benjamin Pogrund whose joint experiences and debates chart the course of a tyrannous regime and the growth of black resistance.
Tanpopo Volume 1
Camilla d'Errico - 2009
She is released from the machine that has been her only existence for the hope of finding happiness... Inspired by Goethe's Faust, a tragic play whose themes carry throughout this graphic novel. This edition has been reprinted in an extended version with additional pages and a new ending that continues and gives life to a new series of books. Color.
I Do Not Belong
Rick Wood - 2018
One of them put them there. For every hour they do not figure out who, another person will die. They are all going to have to ask themselves: who does not belong?
Rumi, Day by Day
Maryam Mafi - 2014
These poems have been selected on the basis of the poignancy of their message and their relevance to contemporary life.This is timeless wisdom translated for modern readers. It is a guide for meditation and a light switch that you can turn on to make your daily connection with spirit. Use these words as tools to better your life each day, to draw continued guidance, inspiration and spiritual wealth.
Rangikura
Tayi Tibble - 2021
They ask us to think about our relationship to desire and exploitation. They are both nostalgic for, and exhausted by, the pursuit of an endless summer.‘The intricate politics woven into Tibble’s poetry give her writing strength and purpose.’ —Winnie Siulolovao Dunn, Cordite Poetry Review‘Tibble speaks about beauty, activism, power and popular culture with compelling guile, a darkness, a deep understanding and sensuality.’ —Hinemoana Baker‘The poetry is utterly agile on the beam of its making. There is brightness, daring and sure-footedness.’ —Paula Green, NZ Poetry Shelf‘It demonstrates the power of all paradigm-shifting books – which is to fold up previously knotty stumbling blocks like they are furniture left out in the rain, and then replace it with an enlarged space.’ —John Freeman, LitHubTayi Tibble (Te Whānau ā Apanui/Ngāti Porou) was born in 1995 and lives in Wellington. Her first book, Poūkahangatus, won the Jessie Mackay Best First Book of Poetry Award in 2019.
The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories
Tim Burton - 1997
Now he gives birth to a cast of gruesomely sympathetic children – misunderstood outcasts who struggle to find love and belonging in their cruel, cruel worlds. His lovingly lurid illustrations evoke both the sweetness and the tragedy of these dark yet simple beings – hopeful, hapless heroes who appeal to the ugly outsider in all of us, and let us laugh at a world we have long left behind (mostly anyway).
Apple Die
Chelsea Thomas - 2018
All she wanted was hot cocoa, and apple pie. Then she found a dead body, face down in her favorite stream. Now she’s in the middle of a murder investigation, and a killer is on the loose in her quaint small town. Miss May is a former New York City lawyer, so she thinks she and Chelsea can catch the criminal on their own. Local business owner Teeny is nosy, opinionated, and convinced the murder was inspired by her favorite British mystery series. And Chelsea is caught up in the amateur investigation, a timid Watson on her first case. Will the stress of the amateur sleuthing be enough to break Chelsea for good? Or will it be exactly what she needs to get over her ex, and learn to be happy? Most importantly, will this rag-tag crew find the killer before he strikes again?
Funny Peculiar
Will Young - 2012
It was clear from the start that he would never be a typical pop star - and more than ten years later he has become one of our best-loved and most intriguing artists.From his dramatic experiences on Pop Idol; to coming out in the glare of the media spotlight; to his valiant struggles against depression; to the crazy reality of being famous, Will is open about both the highs and lows of his life. He also provides sound and practical advice on dealing with the DVLA helpline - something that has been woefully neglected by all other celebrity memoirs.If you have ever wondered what it's like to attend a fashion show (and find yourself accidentally waving at Anna Wintour); how it feels to sing in front of thousands while fighting a catastrophic bout of low self-esteem; or be subjected to the terror that is a This Morning 'makeover', then Funny Peculiar reveals all. It also reveals what not to say if you ever meet David Beckham.Moving, witty and scrupulously honest, Funny Peculiar is a refreshingly different and fascinating autobiography by a true original.
Diaries Of An Internet Lover
Dawn Porter - 2006
A quick advert on a dating site was the start of an erotic journey which saw her dine with adult babies, get swept off to New York, fall madly in love with a Wall Street hunk, discover her appreciation for rubber uniforms, involve herself in a superbly sexual liaison with a couple, receive oral sex on a train platform and spend the evening with an Irish Leprechaun with a fixation for anal love eggs . . .In her explicit and candid Internet diaries, Porter takes us on a highlycharged sexual adventure through the minefield of dating in the big city.Witty, perceptive and very rude, Diaries of an Internet Lover is the best one night stand you'll ever have.