But for a one small boy in the leafy northern suburbs of Johannesburg ... his beloved housekeeper is serving fish fingers for lunch.This is the tale of Hamish Charles Sutherland Fraser – chorister, horse rider, schoolboy actor and, in his dreams, 1st XV rugby star and young ladies’ delight. A boy who climbs trees in the spring and who loves a girl named Reggie.An odd child growing up in a conflicted, scary, beautiful society.A young South African who hasn’t learnt the rules.

    He doesn't know by whom, where or why. He doesn't know his parents. All he wants is a quiet life and a family experience. The fates conspire against him.Mark OneMark Midway is adopted by two scientists and is reared in a genetic research laboratory. Nine men, ex-military, are on a mission to destroy the laboratory and capture Mark. They are supported by four rogue CIA agents, who have commandeered a test drone and a missile at a Marine base. The team attacks the genetics laboratory complex before dawn, during a raging blizzard. Within hours, seven of the men are dead, one is severely wounded and one barely escapes. Mark also destroyed the drone with its missile. The next morning the four rogue agents are found dead from carbon monoxide poisoning, their killer unknown.Mark flees the laboratory complex, seeking safety and somewhere he can call home. The FBI is on his case and a mysterious organization offers him its assistance. Unknown killers are chasing him and he needs to protect himself and his friends. He needs to surviveMark TwoWe continue the story commenced in Mark One, with a young genetically engineered Mark Midway, FBI Special Agent MayAnn Freewell, and the mysterious Archimedes Schmidt who reports directly to the President. Mark—whose only desire is to be normal––shoots and kills two would-be kidnappers and discovers his search for peace again will elude him. Mark needs to survive. All he wants is a normal life.Schmidt works with FBI Special Agent Freewell to investigate a secret organization—Cerberus––which is infiltrating the FBI, the US Army, and other government departments with genetically engineered humans. Schmidt attempts to take control of Cerberus and discovers his personal relationships are not as reliable as he thought.Mark TwoSchmidt works with FBI Special Agent Freewell to investigate a secret organization—Cerberus––which is infiltrating the FBI, the US Army, and other government departments with genetically engineered soldiers. As Schmidt attempts to take control of Cerberus, he discovers his personal relationships are not as reliable as he thought.Mark ThreeA young woman escapes from a luxury yacht under attack by Chinese pirates in the Mediterranean. American law enforcement agencies collude and conspire to bring about an end to Cerberus, uncaring who gets in their way. Mark Midway faces deadly assaults by unknown enemies. A military helicopter is brought down over Washington by a Russian missile and General Archimedes Schmidt is in critical condition.Mark meets his sister and travels to London to rescue three more genetically engineered children. He finds romance, but he and his companions are under attack in both the US and England. Mark knows only one response - fight back.Mark FourMark Midway returns to America to re-build his home, which was destroyed by a gang of mercenaries. Police collude to effect his kidnap on his way back to Boston. His enemies include terrorists, a rogue NSA senior officer, a retired general, and a wealthy businessman; the latter wants control of all the Cerberus and LifeLong genetic engineering intellectual property. Cerberus teams in the US and UK rally to rescue Mark, but first they need to discover his whereabouts. General Schmidt and the NSA officer are enemies.

    A biting satire about the downfall of a businessman-polygamist who assumes the role of the colonialist in French-speaking Africa.

    She loves her cute son Hintsa, her witty husband Mandla, her comfortably challenging work with the tourism board, and her best friends Nosizwe and Lauren. But she has to admit – its tough being Superwoman in South Africa today. Try being the perfect traditional wife and African mother at home, the perfect promotable black woman at work, and the perfect foil for her Benetton friends one black and Xhosa, one white and English! Thandi admits defeat and decides she needs that great South African bourgeois accessory: a maid. And since she doesnt have the heart to boss about a sister in her own home, she decides it must be a white maid. Marita joining the household seems to disrupt the comfortable space Thandi, Siz and Lauren have settled into. The secrets of the three womens lives are dramatically exposed and they are forced to confront their assumptions about relationships, history and each other.

    After a bizarre mishap Jack Morgan takes up a UN posting in Kenya, hoping to find obscurity on the streets of Nairobi. there he is befriended by the American 'Bear' Hoffman, a man equally at home in the city's racy nightlife as in the Kenyan bush. Jack's hopes for seclusion are soon dashed as he is seduced by the excitement of Africa and by a beautiful Maasai woman named Malaika. Malaika carries a dark secret, and when a warrior returns from her past, she and Jack are plunged into a world of ancient spiritualism and tribal curses. Caught at the centre of a gathering storm, they must fight for the survival of their love... Rich in historical details, tears of the Maasai follows Jack on a flight from truth, and a Maasai family's journey through time, from warrior supremacy to the colour and drama of modern-day Kenya. 'remarkable... adventuresome... suffused with tenderness' Australian Book Review

    The story takes place in Harare at the height of Zimbabwe’s economic woes in 2008. The book is a thorough and evocative attempt at grappling with a variety of important issues in the postcolonial context: tradition and modernity; feminism and patriarchy; spiritual and political freedoms and responsibilities; poverty and desperation; and wealth and abundance.

    Illustrator and writer's Carolyn Marie Castagna's first shared short story.A small icicle hanging from a roof peers inside a window at a small reading room, and learns about magical human qualities, and the importance of the one most special human feeling.

    Set in Makokoba, a black township, in the late 1940s, the novel is an intensely bittersweet love story. When Fumbatha, a construction worker, meets the much younger Phephelaphi, he"wants her like the land beneath his feet from which birth had severed him." He in turn fills her "with hope larger than memory." But Phephelaphi is not satisfied with their "one-room" love alone. The qualities that drew Fumbatha to her, her sense of independence and freedom, end up separating them. And the closely woven fabric of township life, where everyone knows everyone else, has a mesh too tight and too intricate to allow her to escape her circumstances on her own.Vera exploits language to peel away the skin of public and private lives. In Butterfly Burning she captures the ebullience and the bitterness of township life, as well as the strength and courage of her unforgettable heroine.

    Then her father, activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, was murdered there, and she didn't return for 10 years.Recently, she decided to rediscover and come to terms with the country her father loved. She travelled from the exuberant chaos of Lagos to the calm beauty of the eastern mountains; from the eccentricity of a Nigerian dog show to the empty Transwonderland Amusement Park—Nigeria's decrepit and deserted answer to Disneyland. She explored Nigerian christianity, delved into its history of slavery, examined the corrupting effect of oil, investigated Nollywood. She found the country as exasperating as ever, and frequently despaired at the corruption and inefficiency she encountered.But she also discovered that it was far more beautiful and varied than she had ever imagined, and she was seduced by its thick tropical rainforest and ancient palaces and monuments. Most engagingly of all, she introduces us to the people she meets and gives us hilarious insights into the Nigerian character: its passion, wit, and ingenuity.

    Truth Seeker. Crime Fighter. He'll risk everything for a story...Likeable characters, clever plot, and highly addictive. Once you start you won't be able to put it down!Before there was the Daily Times, there was the Franklin University Student Enquirer.Hyder Ali is a freshman at the Franklin University. He is on a business scholarship with the aim of becoming an accountant someday. He never imagined a horrific event ten years before would change his life forever.

    On the one hand she is a pious mother of four sons, but under the veil she is a daring, independent-minded woman with a sexuality, and a liking for risky behavior, that she keeps secret from those closest to her. We follow her story in two different time frames. As a woman in her forties, dealing with the tragic death of her son from AIDS, Abeeda is drawn into the world of casino gambling and quickly develops a gambling addiction, in which she convulsively wins and loses large amounts of money. In a serious of flash backs we also trace her life as a woman in her twenties, from the time when her husband left her, through a torrid affair with her younger sister's fiance (and then husband) Imran. The episodes in the casino are intense - the compulsive attraction and the nightmare of gambling are made vivid to the reader. On the other hand, Abeeda's involvement in her community, and her genuine spiritual seeking, are also very clear. Weaving together these captivating main story lines are numerous subplots involving her family, religion, friends and her life in the community.

    Khumalo’s salon, and she is secure in her status until the handsome, smooth-talking Dumisani shows up one day for work. Despite her resistance, the two become friends, and eventually, Vimbai becomes Dumisani’s landlady. He is as charming as he is deft with the scissors, and Vimbai finds that he means more and more to her. Yet, by novel’s end, the pair’s deepening friendship—used or embraced by Dumisani and Vimbai with different futures in mind—collapses in unexpected brutality.The novel is an acute portrayal of a rapidly changing Zimbabwe. In addition to Vimbai and Dumisani’s personal development, the book shows us how social concerns shape the lives of everyday people.

    Now Beah, whom Dave Eggers has called “arguably the most read African writer in contemporary literature,” has returned with his first novel, an affecting, tender parable about postwar life in Sierra Leone.At the center of Radiance of Tomorrow are Benjamin and Bockarie, two longtime friends who return to their hometown, Imperi, after the civil war. The village is in ruins, the ground covered in bones. As more villagers begin to come back, Benjamin and Bockarie try to forge a new community by taking up their former posts as teachers, but they’re beset by obstacles: a scarcity of food; a rash of murders, thievery, rape, and retaliation; and the depredations of a foreign mining company intent on sullying the town’s water supply and blocking its paths with electric wires. As Benjamin and Bockarie search for a way to restore order, they’re forced to reckon with the uncertainty of their past and future alike.With the gentle lyricism of a dream and the moral clarity of a fable, Radiance of Tomorrow is a powerful novel about preserving what means the most to us, even in uncertain times.

    

    "Ubu and the Truth Commission" is the full play text of a multi-dimensional theatre piece which tries to make sense of the madness which overtook South Africa during apartheid.