Book picks similar to
The Textures Of Silence by Gordon Vorster


fiction
south-africa-lit
south-african-literature
modern-fiction

A Rumble in V.A.


Rayven Skyy - 2011
    A constant battle to sustain his hustle in the streets of seven cities becomes a more complex task, as a new hustler from Florida orchestrates a low-key takeover. Lust, betrayal, disloyalty, selfishness, and greed all fuel an imminent explosion as these events unfold—setting the stage for A RUMBLE IN VA!

Shepherds & Butchers


Chris Marnewick - 2008
    At nineteen, he is a Death Row warder at Maximum Security Prison in Pretoria, South Africa: a shepherd who cares for the condemned - and a butcher who escorts them to the gallows. In the summer of 1987, after thirty-two men were hanged in two weeks (all real cases), Leon loses control, with tragic results. And now he's the one facing the death penalty. Only the most precarious line of legal argument stands between Leon and the gallows. Chasing a defense, his advocate trawls the deepest recesses of life in the Pot - the twilight world of Death Row - in order to determine the effect of multiple executions on his young client. In 1987, 164 people were executed at Maximum Security. Two years later, the last man went to the gallows, after more than four thousand hangings in Pretoria in that century. Shepherds & Butchers portrays legal execution in unprecedented detail, revealing its devastating impact on all those involved. At the same time, it exposes the callous violence on the other side of the noose, where murderers reign. Chris Marnewick's first novel is a gripping courtroom drama steeped in the factual.

How can you judge me


Robert Cost - 2015
    Before you try to judge or condemn me like you walked in my shoes or experienced half the pain I had to endure, First read my story! My life was far from a fairy tale. I've been victimized, falsely imprisoned, and crossed by everyone I knew. My journey to finding love and having everything go wrong in the process has changed me. I had no choice but to fight... Fight for a love I so desperately wanted but was never worthy enough to find. A love that ultimately altered my mental for the worst!My prayers went unanswered!My cries weren't noticed!My plea for salvation was denied!After the numerous trial and tribulations I had to endure... And being the product of such an horrific environment... There's only one question I want to know. "Am I wrong for turning into the person I've become?"

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa


Peter Godwin - 2006
    On these frequent visits to check on his elderly parents, he bore witness to Zimbabwe's dramatic spiral downwards into thejaws of violent chaos, presided over by an increasingly enraged dictator. And yet long after their comfortable lifestyle had been shattered and millions were fleeing, his parents refuse to leave, steadfast in their allegiance to the failed state that has been their adopted home for 50 years.Then Godwin discovered a shocking family secret that helped explain their loyalty. Africa was his father's sanctuary from another identity, another world.WHEN A CROCODILE EATS THE SUN is a stirring memoir of the disintegration of a family set against the collapse of a country. But it is also a vivid portrait of the profound strength of the human spirit and the enduring power of love.

Charlie (Recovering Commando, #1)


Finn Og - 2019
    He must also provide for her. His extraction from special operations at sea leads him to form a clandestine company. 'CHARLIE' helps Sam appease his desire for vengeance, to deal with his grief, and to cleanse his conscience of some of the questionable things he's seen and done. Until he's asked to do a job which throws their healing, and safety, into doubt.

Kingpin: Prisoner of the War on Drugs


Richard Stratton - 2017
    Gulag America tells the story of the eight years that followed, through two federal trials and the underworld of the federal prison system, at a time when it was undergoing unprecedented expansion due to the War on Drugs. Stratton was shipped by bus from LA's notorious Glass House to jails and prisons across the country, a softening process known as diesel therapy. Resisting pressure to falsely implicate his friend and mentor, Norman Mailer, he was convicted in his second trial under the kingpin statute and sentenced to twenty-five years without the possibility of parole.While doing time in prisons from Manhattan's Criminal Hilton to rural Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, and New York, he witnessed brutality as well as camaraderie, rampant trafficking of contraband, and crimes by both guards and convicts. He first learned the lessons of survival. Then he learned to prevail, becoming a jailhouse lawyer and winning the reversal of his kingpin sentence and eventual release.Gulag America includes cameos by Norman Mailer and Muhammad Ali, and an account of the author's friendship with mafia don Joe Stassi, a legendary hitman from the early days of the mob who knew gangsters Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, and Abe Zwillman and has insights into the killing of Dutch Schultz and the Kennedy assassinationGulag America is the second volume in Richard Stratton's trilogy, Remembrance of the War on Plants.

Game free sampler


Anders de la Motte - 2013
    As their lives spiral out of control, HP faces a challenge he never expected. Can he outwit The Game before it’s too late?

Necessary Sins: A Memoir


Lynn Darling - 2007
    He was older, married, more “establishment,” a celebrated foreign correspondent and editor. She, who entered Harvard at age sixteen, was a brilliant wild child of the sixties. She lived life in the present tense, where every affair was an adventure. Then Darling fell in love and everything changed.This is a story of the many lessons love can teach us, of a marriage turned upside down and inside out, and all the tenderness, thrills, comfort, and yes, even disappointment, that comes with the territory. Lynn Darling thought she knew the narrative of her own life, until it really began with her “one true north,” and now, ten years after his death, her story is still unfolding.From the Hardcover edition.

A Hero's Homecoming


Carlene Havel - 2012
    His wife Rita has disappeared. His credit cards are invalid. A stranger is living in his house and he keeps running into people who are convinced he was killed in action months ago. Worst of all, his wealthy father has suffered a stroke.Psychologist Charlotte Phillips claims to be his comatose father’s legal guardian. Rich is determined to learn what has happened, gain control of his father’s money, and unmask Charlotte as the gold-digging schemer he’s certain she is. He is shocked to find his father’s crusty old attorney has been taken in by her along with everyone else.Can Rich straighten out the mess his life has become?

Back to the Bush: Another Year in the Wild


James Hendry - 2013
    Angus is involved in a romantic liaison, which takes the edge off his customary cynicism, and for the first time in their adult lives, a positive fraternal bond exists between them.Inevitably, reality comes calling. Angus’s love affair ends and he copes poorly, Hugh becomes stratospherically arrogant on the back of a promotion and Julia, the MacNaughtons’ sister, starts dating Angus’s nemesis – Alistair ‘The Legend’ Jones. Then there are a series of further ‘hiccups’, from demanding lodge guests and marauding monkeys, to a labour protest, a run-in with a blind-drunk head chef, a winter drought, a rogue elephant that puts staff and guests in danger and the resignation of the sterling head ranger.You are guaranteed to be entertained by the hilarious antics and hard knocks as well as the fierce beauty of the African landscape in Back to the Bush: Another Year in the Wild. ‘A Year in the Wild is a delight to read [and a] hugely entertaining novel. Don’t miss it. If there’s a sequel, and I hope there is, I will be first in line to read it.’ – BRIAN JOSS, Bolander

The Mashego File


Ian Patrick - 2016
    Building on front-line research in the war against crime in Durban, South Africa, with assistance and guidance from detectives, forensics experts, and victims of crime, the author has explored the precise locations in which scenes are set, and has captured details of background, history, and actual crimes before adapting them for his purposes into fast-paced fiction thrillers. His intention is to create exciting crime stories steeped in authenticity of action, place and time, while exploring current debates on law, justice, crime and moral responsibility. Intrigued by the way the character Mashego evolved in 'Plain Dealing', he decided to trace back in the detective's past to explore the origins of his attitude and approach to police work. 'The Mashego File' traces this earlier phase in the policeman's career.

The Detainees


Sean Hughes - 1997
    

The Boy No One Loved: Free Sampler


Casey Watson - 2015
    Their mother, a heroin addict, had left them alone again. Later that day, after trying to burn down the family home, Justin was taken into care.Six years on, after 20 failed placements, Justin arrives at Casey’s home. Casey and her husband Mike are specialist foster carers. They practice a new style of foster care that focuses on modifying the behaviour of profoundly damaged children. They are Justin’s last hope, and it quickly becomes clear that they are facing a big challenge.Try as they might to make him welcome, he seems determined to strip his life of all the comforts they bring him, violently lashing out at schoolmates and family and throwing any affection they offer him back in their faces. After a childhood filled with hurt and rejection, Justin simply doesn’t want to know. But, as it soon emerges, this is only the tip of a chilling iceberg.A visit to Justin’s mother on Boxing Day reveals that there are some very dark underlying problems that Justin has never spoken about. As the full picture becomes clearer, and the horrific truth of Justin’s early life is revealed, Casey and her family finally start to understand the pain he has suffered…

Healing Rhinos and Other Souls: The Extraordinary Fortunes of a Bushveld Vet


Stephanie Rohrbach - 2013
    For nearly fifty years Walter Eschenburg lived and worked as a pioneering wildlife vet in the South African bushveld with its many animals and a host of weird and wonderful people. After a childhood spent in a German castle during the Second World War, a harrowing escape from the Russian army and a sequence of bold moves and fortunate circumstances, it is here, against the backdrop of the harsh but beautiful landscapes of the Waterberg, that Walter comes into his own and develops into a seasoned vet. He encounters charging rhinos, tame buffalo, irate cows and angry giraffes; he deals with snakes and warthogs, amorous elephants, cats, dogs and donkeys. He treats his patients with compassion and kindness, and his clients with large doses of humour. Healing Rhinos and Other Souls is a story of love and life; of nature and adventures; of humour, passion and understanding. It is a story about a man who was simply himself all his life, the story of a life well lived.

Histories


Sam Guglani - 2017
    A junior doctor makes a moral judgment; a porter waxes lyrical on his invisibility; a patient swims in and out of consciousness. Over the course of one week, each character pulses round the others - a body fighting its own sickness.In prose that's tender and refined, doctor and poet Sam Guglani dissects the ordinary moments that make the difference; taking up that tug of war between medicine and faith, love and fear, life and death.