Book picks similar to
No Man's Land by Carel van der Merwe


south-africa
south-african-authors
africa
fiction

A Game Ranger Remembers


Bruce Bryden - 2009
    Bruce Bryden's tales of 27 years in the service of our most famous park make a gripping and entertaining read, abounding with encounters with elephant, lion, buffalo, leopard and rhino, whether darting for research, managing culling operations by helicopter or stalking on foot. In the best tradition of bushveld stories, there is a great deal of shooting, and a fair amount of running away; there are meetings with extraordinary characters among the rangers; memorable gatherings; hilarious mishaps and narrow escapes; and throughout, a great love and respect for both the wilderness and the creatures that inhabit it.

Cupid Is Complicated


Namita Bajaj Sonthalia - 2019
    She believed in destiny and he, in her…. Their hearts beat in amalgamation the moment they had set their eyes on each other. It wasn't love at first sight, it was more. It was finding ‘home’ at first sight. As the last of teenage years hit their door, Naman and Dhwani found each other on the first day of their college. A chocolaty, teenage romance could have brewed, but she chose to keep it at bay until she knew herself better. He? He chose to wait, until her heart let him in. The possibility of loving someone without any conditions, obligations or even acknowledgement could seem unreal. But is true love all about living, breathing and being with that one person? What if, you are not meant to be? Is that not Love at all? A story that will tug at your heart strings like never before, a story that will make you wonder what ‘hope’ is all about; here is a story that will make you want to rethink - what ‘LOVE’ really is.

Johanna Lindsey Collection: All I Need is You, Say You Love Me, Love Me Forever


Johanna Lindsey - 2001
    Casey Stratton has left behind an unbearable situation at home and set off on her own, relying on her courage and inventiveness to survive where most women could not. Damien Rutledge III is a society man from New York, thrusting aside his life of refinement and sophistication in favor of a more basic need - revenge.Say You Love Me (Read by Michael Page, directed by Sandra Burr)Her parents' death has left Kelsey Langton penniless - and responsible for the well-being of her younger sister, Jean. Kelsey knows that the only way to avert their doom is to allow herself to be sold at auction. Resigned to becoming the plaything of a well-heeled gentleman, she gets more than she bargained for.Love Me Forever (Read by Michael Page, directed by Ruth Bloomquist)A young heiress in mourning for her mother's death, Kimberly Richards has been abandoned by her lifelong fiancé. But Kimberly's father, the recently widowed Earl of Amburough, is intent upon marrying her off as quickly as possible - to please the jealous lover he longs to wed.

Body Count: A Special Forces thriller set in the Vietnam War


Eric Helm - 1984
    BUT CHARLIE OWNED THE CLOCK! One morning there was nothing but hot, thick jungle and steaming swamp. And the Viet Cong. The next morning there were three hundred sweating, groaning men chopping and chain sawing a hole in that particular hunk of hell. And that's where Captain Mack Gerber and his Scorpion Squad were going to set up shop. Right in the VC's backyard. Gerber's orders were simple: Let the VC know they didn't own the delta anymore; let them know they were in a lastditch fight; and make sure it was the last thing they'd ever know. But Victor Charlie had their own plans. A clock was ticking. Soon all hell would break loose and there wouldn't be enough survivors left to do a ... body count.

Green Lion


Henrietta Rose-Innes - 2015
    Much closer than it appears.”When a lion at a breeding park mauls an old school friend of his, Con steps in as the keeper of Sekhmet, the last remaining black-maned lioness in the world. In a Cape Town where fences keep people and wildlife apart, park officials and investors fret about their flagship big-cat project. And while Con grows steadily more bonded to his enigmatic charge, a cult of animal lovers with obscure alchemical aims seeks to claim the lioness as their own. When she escapes, Sekhmet engulfs the city’s imagination, stirring up rumours of terror and magic. In Con’s quest to track her down, he must enter the wilderness of a cordoned-off Table Mountain – and his own dark history. Henrietta Rose-Innes’s novel Green Lion gleams with stylistic precision as myth and reality fuse in a story that sparks off the page.

The Master Blaster


P.F. Kluge - 2012
    This captivating novel intertwines the stories of several inhabitants on Saipan, America's least-appreciated tropical island. George Griffin is a jaded writer who comes for a press junket and stays far longer than expected; Stephanie Warner is a university professor recently on "trial separation" from her husband; Mel Brodie is an elderly entrepreneur; and Khan is a Bangladeshi laborer who comes to Saipan ("America") to escape hunger. Their voices circle the enthralling element of Saipan-and the hopes that originally drew them to the island. With the versatility that won Kluge accolades as the writer behind Dog Day Afternoon, The Master Blaster is a rare wonder of contemporary storytelling.

The Monsoon Murders


Karan Parmanandka - 2016
    The twist in the tale comes with themurder of a well-known man in the Mumbai finance circle. Roy is hired bythe self made tycoon Jayesh Kumar to probe the case. While Roy isexcited at the chance at redemption, he fails to understand why hebecame the chosen one.What looks at first an open and shut case, quite rapidly evolves into a taleof deceit and revenge. Roy must take care not to fall for the suspect, andnot to see things as they appear. As his personal life gets tied to thesuccess of the case, the question becomes, not whether he can havefaith in strangers, but whether he can trust his friends.Inspired from real life cases, The Monsoon Murders is afast-paced detective novel, taking the Indian crime fiction genre tomysterious depths.

Churchill & Smuts: The Friendship


Richard Steyn - 2017
    In youth they occupied very different worlds: Churchill, the rambunctious and thrusting young aristocrat; Smuts, the ascetic, philosophical Cape farm boy who would go on to Cambridge where, in an unprecedented achievement, he sat both parts of a law tripos simultaneously and won a double first.Brought together first as enemies in the Anglo-Boer War, and later as allies in the First World War, the men forged a friendship that spanned the first half of the twentieth century and endured until Smuts's death in 1950. Richard Steyn, author of Jan Smuts: Unafraid of Greatness, examines this close friendship through two world wars and the intervening years, drawing on a maze of archival and secondary sources, including letters, telegrams and the voluminous books written about both men.This is a fascinating account of two exceptional men in war and peace: one the leader of an empire, the other the leader of a small fractious member of that empire who rose to global prominence.

Mad Joy


Jane Bailey - 2006
    Two years later she walks out again and into the nearest house. The girl, known as Joy in the Cotswold village which adopts her, grows into a young woman at the advent of war and at last the mystery of her past begins to unravel.

My Name Is Nathan Lucius


Mark Winkler - 2015
    Disaffected, hard-drinking and plagued by blackouts, Nathan lives alone and has only one true friend, a woman named Madge. But Madge is dying slowly of cancer, and when she asks Nathan to end her pain, she sets off a shocking string of events.A modern-day answer to Crime and Punishment, My Name Is Nathan Lucius is a taut and unforgiving exploration of the intersection of violence, trauma, social responsibility, and memory. Stylish, intense, and unforgettable, this glittering noir gem that will appeal to readers of Irvine Welsh and Chuck Palahniuk as well as fans of Thomas Harris and Dennis Lehane.

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.

Agaat


Marlene van Niekerk - 2006
    As she struggles to communicate with her maidservant turned caretaker, Agaat, the complicated history of their relationship is revealed.Life for white farmers in 1950s South Africa was full of promise. Young and newly married, Milla carved her own farm out of a swathe of Cape mountainside. She earned the respect of the male farmers in her community and raised a son. But forty years later all she has left are memories and the proud, contrary Agaat. With punishing precision, yet infinite tenderness, Agaat performs her duties, balancing anger with loyalty. As Milla’s white world and its certainties recede and Agaat faces the prospect of freedom, the shift of power between them mirrors the historic changes happening around them. Marlene van Niekerk’s epic masterpiece portrays how two women—and, perhaps, a nation—can forge a path toward understanding and reconciliation.

The Narrow Path


Francis Selormey - 1966
    The story that he tells, nearly 40 years later, is of his early days at home and in school, brought up in a strict mission household and conflicting with his father.

A Man Who is Not a Man


Thando Mgqolozana - 2009
    A Man Who Is Not A Man recounts the personal trauma of a young Xhosa initiate after a rite-of-passage circumcision has gone wrong. With frankness and courage, author Thando Mgqolozana's powerful novel details the pain and lifelong shame that is experienced as a result of not just the physical trauma, but the social ostracism of being labeled 'a failed man.' He decodes the values and mysteries of this deep-seated cultural tradition and calls to account the elders for the disintegrating support systems that allow such tragic outcomes to happen. But it is also through this life-changing experience that his protagonist is forced to find his strength and humanity, and reassess what it really means to be a man.

Land Beyond the Horizon


Julia Drosten - 2019
    During the arduous sea voyage from the Netherlands to the ends of the earth, he encounters artist Bethari de Groot traveling to the colonies with her father, an executive with the Dutch East India Company.Hannes is a hothead, Bethari is headstrong, and their initial encounter is less than cordial. When they are shipwrecked off the coast of South Africa, Bethari discovers an admirable man inside the adventurer while he, in turn, is captivated by the young beauty’s courage and determination.While Bethari waits in Cape Town to begin her journey to Asia, she and Hannes discover their love for each other. When Hannes is dispatched to Ceylon on a mysterious mission, Bethari follows him and discovers that her beloved is entangled in a dangerous web of intrigue and skullduggery. Together they must fight for their future and their happiness.