A stylish translation from the Afrikaans, from a winner of the Hertzog prize. Short stories. 144pp, SOUTH AFRICA. DAVID PHILIP PUBLISHERS.

New fiction from South Africa. Carla Jensen is big-hearted, bright, beautiful, a rebel by nature and a champion of the downtrodden. Adrift and exhaustedby her chronic illness, she witnesses a random act of violence on a city street and the ensuing confrontation impels her to challenge man's inhumanity to society's outcasts and ultimately to embark on a personal quest for healing and redemption. Her journey takes her into the maelstrom of disordered minds, across the sometimes hazardous terrain of sexual deviance, and into the dark heart of her own family and of Anna, her mother, who is haunted by her own sad secrets. 357pp, SOUTH AFRICA. PENGUIN BOOKS SOUTH AFRICA.

A young Zulu boy named Dumisani grows up in awe of the legendary figure of Nelson Mandela. He thinks of Mandela not only as a great leader of the oppressed, but also as a great seducer of women, and it is in this aspect that he decides to emulate Mandela. A woman he has been pursuing for a long time yields to his advances the day the Black Pimpernel is captured. But Mandela's imprisonment renders Dumisani impotent for 27 years. 182pp, SOUTH AFRICA. UMUZI.

A tale of a young woman retiring to South Africa hoping to come to terms with the murder of her sister, the father she hates and a country undergoing its own reconciliation. 119pp, UK. MACMILLAN, 0330415603

2003 Paperback

A novel of township life in Johannesburg in the 1930s, it tells the story of Martha, trapped between the pull of the country and the violent life with dance-band groups.

'... has the authentic ring of Johannesburg of the time.' - New Society. 118 pp. UK. African Writers Series, 0435901249

1973 Paperback

First independent publication of a novel written in the early 1930s. A young woman returns to her village as an ardent nationalist after qualifying as a doctor in London; a ‘bittereinder’ who left the Transvaal Republic for the Argentine after the Anglo-Boer War returns to his grandfather's village as a highly critical expatriate; the local villagers pursue their lives; and the resulting issues of patriotism, language, race, religion, culture, politics and morality, so endemic to South Africa, combine as the action of the story builds to a climax. 277pp, SOUTH AFRICA. CEDERBERG PUBLISHERS.

New edition. First published in 1982 during the height of apartheid, Mating Birds exposes the mythology of segregation and highlights the political nature of interracial relationships. This new edition includes a new preface by the author. 140pp, SOUTH AFRICA. KWELA BOOKS.

A thriller set in South Africa, based on the events surrounding the air crash that killed Mozambiquan head of state Samora Machel. 255pp, SOUTH AFRICA. KWELA BOOKS.

In this novel a reluctant heroine finds support from unlikely quarters. After a ruling by the Land Claims Court, a group of people start returning to their ancestral land in KwaZulu Natal. Joshua, the patriarchal leader, dies soon after their return. His daughter Zodwa, a sophisticated young graduate, is forced to continue where her father left off. The Memory of Stones is her story of how she deals with attitudes towards women, with the clash between traditional values and modernity, and with her maternal uncle who extracts levies from the squatter neighbours. A microcosm of the tensions existing in a new democracy still trying to define itself. 366pp, SOUTH AFRICA. DAVID PHILIP.

An historical romance, telling the story of Mhudi who saves her husband's life from raiding soldiers in a time span from August 1832 to the rout of the Matabele in November 1837. First published in 1930, this edition includes a bibliography, and a new introduction. 202pp, SOUTH AFRICA. JONATHAN BALL PUBLISHERS.

First published in 1946, this novel was one of the first books to expose universally the condition of black South Africans under Apartheid. 184 pp. UK.Heinemann African Writers Series.

New fiction. Miss Kwa Kwa (or MK) is learning that in a country supposedly so black-and-white, there are a million shades of grey: 'Coconuts', 'Wiggas' and 'Buppies' are a few examples. But behind the simple façade of the rural, charming Miss Kwa Kwa lies a mind as sharp as a panga and just as deadly - and somewhere in this Rainbow Nation is a pot of gold with her name on it. Unaware that several people are chasing her, MK begins stalking a politician who has just checked his wife into rehab. Utterly charmed by MK, he takes her to the top-secret Studio 94 with its exclusive clientele. Throw in coincidence/fate, skulduggery, a crazed prostitute named Leeyann, a terrifying thunderstorm and a blackout, and it's a recipe for disaster. 246pp, SOUTH AFRICA. JACANA MEDIA.

In Johannesburg and Cape Town, sinister plots are afoot, and MK - no stranger to the deep end - may just be in over her head. The lady usually causing all the trouble now faces it from all sides: political fanatics, a Hollywood party girl, a secret agent, and most diabolical of all - local television. Further adventures of Miss Kwa Kwa, from the scurrilous pen of Stephen Simm. 224pp, SOUTH AFRICA. JACANA MEDIA.

New in paperback. Draws on the memories of a son who recalls and immortalises his mother, a glamorous safari pilot and the daughter of a prodigious family, part Irish, part English, part African. The men she brings into the house refract the story of the whites in South Africa, whose sorry history runs from the Boer War, through both World Wars, to the loss of power in the 1990s. An epic tragicomedy, as dark as the European romancing of Africa. 464pp, UK. ATLANTIC BOOKS.

A law-abiding citizen is arrested for an unspecified crime and kept under house arrest. The town buzzes with wild rumours and the innocent victim soon discovers what dark suspicions his neighbours have been harbouring. This is the darkly comic tale of how momentous changes dramatically alter the respectable townsfolk of G, how the past is remembered or collectively forgotten. Depicts a society in transition and, with irony and wit, shows how it deals with truth, history and identity. 240pp, SOUTH AFRICA. DAVID PHILIP/NEW AFRICA BOOKS.

The story of a young country boy who comes to town - to the bright lights of Johannesburg and the dangerous streets of the townships. SOUTH AFRICA. RAVAN PRESS.

Sam Jameson, eight years old at the time of his father George's death, decides, some forty years later, to go through the box of his father's papers which his mother had passed on to him. In trying to piece together the life of a parent he never really knew, Sam discovers a sensitive, inherently kind but insecure man. George has seemingly spent his working life as a native commissioner conscientiously carrying out his duties, but has never quite been able to come to terms with the white man's place in Africa. As his doubts deepen he is overwhelmed by despair. 244pp, SOUTH AFRICA. PENGUIN BOOKS SOUTH AFRICA.

Set in the province of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, the author tells the courageous story of a young girl growing up having to face both traditional customs and violent abuse from her father. 154pp, SOUTH AFRICA. DAVID PHILIP.

A professor contemplates the ruin of his life while delivering a passionate final lecture; a city girl suffers an unaccountably cruel twist of fate in a stranger's apartment; a rising executive flies blindly toward his past; and, darkly fleeting, a young boy haunts the lives of all who cross his path. In The New Suffolk Hymnbook, it is the district of Suffolk that binds them together - a place so carefully and imaginatively constructed that it evokes the novels of William Faulkner. 227pp, SOUTH AFRICA. JACANA MEDIA.

36-year-old Paul du Toit, a covert army operative in the twilight years of white-ruled South Africa, believes he has buried his violent past, until events force him to apply for amnesty from the TRC for the deaths of two anti-apartheid activists. He is dismissed from his job and his wife sues him for divorce. Heartbroken and unemployable, Paul knows he has become a pariah. On discovering that Louise has fled to London, he follows her there to win her back and becomes part of the South African expatriate community. Adrift in an inhospitable city, he reflects on his past and his guilt, something he has avoided since being associated with the death of two activists. However, the truth is as elusive as Louise is, and his journey to London also becomes a painful journey into himself. He finds out that Louise harbours some secrets of her own and becomes involved in a violent feud with London criminals. 206pp, SOUTH AFRICA. UMUZI.

Crime fiction. An artist at the Museum is dead: sharp-tongued Hannah, a former exile, whose passions turn out to be fatal. Three very different people must combine forces to uncover her murderer: Ewan Christopher, Hannah's former lover and a British journalist, out of his depth in the new South Africa; Inspector Cicero Matyobeni, the world-weary policeman from Khayelitsha, holding on to his compassion for dear life; and the beautiful but insecure pathologist Helena de Villiers, who is becoming perhaps too personally involved. 255pp, SOUTH AFRICA. DOUBLE STOREY BOOKS.

New edition. Camille Pascal, a young, unmarried French nurse comes to South Africa with her father and daughter Zara, during the closing years of the apartheid regime. They settle among a wine growing community in the Western Cape where they become involved in the lives of victims of the system. 244pp, UK. VINTAGE.

An action-packed crime thriller set in Cape Town against the backdrop of the abalone wars along the Cape coast. It is a story of two private investigators from a two-bit agency involved in seemingly different cases. Mullet is hired by the wife of a financial consultant who is allegedly soliciting rent boys. Vincent Saldana is tracking a gang stealing from an abalone farm. But the two cases converge and the action moves from central Cape Town to the suburbs, from Dutch Bay east of the city to Sea Farm on the South Coast, as the detectives hone in on a Triad operator named Jim Woo. 291pp, SOUTH AFRICA. UMUZI.

A collection of short stories set among the poor communities of the Western Cape during the era of apartheid. 206pp, UK. LONGMAN.

A novel about life in the artistic community in 1960s Cape Town: the struggle against the role of the political writer, of ethnic stereotyping, and personal despair. 197pp, SOUTH AFRICA. KWELA BOOKS, 079570044X

A love story set against the background of South Africa's apartheid. 262pp, SOUTH AFRICA. DAVID PHILIP.

Portrait of apartheid South Africa in its waning years. As the novel builds to a conclusion, the protagonist, a veteran of the secret war in Angola and Namibia, is forced to appear before the Truth and Reconciliation Committee. Gloss, 295pp, USA. W.W. NORTON & COMPANY.

A panoramic novel about a community living near Kimberley between 1900 and 1930. The author presents colourful pictures of life, the Anglo Boer war, diamonds, court cases, marriages and funerals. Winner of the M Net Prize, the Eugene Marais Prize and the CNA Literary Prize. Gloss, map, 375pp, SOUTH AFRICA. KWELA BOOKS.

A moving description of a woman who discovers that her cultural identity is based on a lie. Marion runs a travel agency in Cape Town during the 1990s and the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions investigations. She has little interest in national events, but when a photograph in a newspaper brings back a long-lost childhood memory, leading to the discovery of a skeleton in her family closet that her father is unwilling to discuss, she turns to Brenda, the first coloured woman she has ever employed, for help in uncovering her history. 218pp, SOUTH AFRICA. UMUZI.

Returning to Pretoria where he grew up, Harry van As finds himself in a state of limbo. So many things have changed; so many are still the same. His friends are certainly not those he grew up with: a striking Nigerian schemer, a mathematician-turned-New-Ager, a young black insurance broker and a gay architect. In this novel of shifting surfaces, Harry rekindles a relationship with an old varsity flame and encounters a Pretoria sculptor who works with the unusual medium of glass. Yet his mind constantly returns to another existence - a life in Cape Town, a terrible accident, a mysterious loss. As the shards of Harry's life come together, the reality around him fragments. A picnic at the giant meteor crater on the outskirts of the city brings his quest to a head: he discovers the door through which to enter, and to exit. Bib, 208pp, SOUTH AFRICA. UMUZI.

Now in paperback. On a lonely stretch of road a nameless man commits a murder. The victim is a religious minister on his way to take up a new post at a nearby town. The murderer decides to steal the man's identity and becomes embroiled with the town's drama and the hunt for the murderer. 169pp, UK. ATLANTIC BOOKS.

New edition. The most important things are hardest to find words for, her father once said. That's why people make music. When Ana returns to the ramshackle cottage of her youth in the seaside village of Noordhoek, near Cape Town, she does so with the intention of sorting out her father's affairs. It soon becomes clear that more is at stake. After a decade in London, where she has failed to find work as a musician, her return to South Africa puts further distance into an already strained marriage, not only because she is out of reach, but because Michael, her husband, has lost faith in the country. Quick to welcome her is her neighbour, Franz van der Veer, an architect searching for redemption. This is further complicated by the arrival of his eccentric brother, Daniel. Against a tangle of childhood memories, scarred histories and renewed hope, Ana finally starts to confront the death of Sam, her Irish luthier father, and with it, questions of guilt and belonging. 208pp, UK. VINTAGE UK.

Of this novel Hein Willemse says: 'Should one wish to categorise this work it could probably be defined as a gay novel, or more particularly, a black gay novel. This subject matter has not been explored in this manner in English South African literature before. The novel challenges ingrained myths about maleness, black male sexuality, and urbanised Africans. At the same time it explores the impact of dysfunctional personal histories and the insecurities of relationships between young black and white students during times of personal transition.' 457pp, SOUTH AFRICA. KWELA BOOKS.

Set in Grahamstown, South Africa, during the 1990s, at the height of political unrest and opposition to apartheid, this is the bittersweet story of two people whose lives intertwine without them ever knowing each other - one a heavy-drinking white man and the other the young daughter of a black activist. Reuben Cohen van Tonder's battle with unresolved grief and his search for hidden peace and Vita Marangxa's innocent resolve to remove the bad luck which has troubled her family for generations, climax together in a resolution of personal and national triumph. Bib, 367pp, UK. BLACK SWAN.

Cartoons and television provide therapy for a young South African coping with the traumatic loss of his parents. BNS, 229pp, SOUTH AFRICA. MAIL & GUARDIAN BOOKS, 0958434050

A disquieting tale of truth and the past in a small South African town. 'This is a beautifully written novel, with the pace and twists of a thriller and the atmosphere, scents and space of Africa.' - Victoria Brittain, The Guardian. 340pp. UK. VIRAGO.

Seamus Doyle escapes from a traditional Irish village and arrives in a remote Transkei village where he tries to stand aside from South African politics. But how long can he ignore the forces of oppression. Gloss, 233pp, UK. HEINEMANN, 0435905899

First English translation of a novel, INKINNSELA YASEMGUNGUNDLOVU, that was written in Zulu, and first published in 1961, this novel tells of the rotten life of someone who adopts a 'white' lifestyle in Apartheid South Africa, and of criminal exploits in a country district. Translated by Sandile Ngidi. 200pp, UK. AFLAME BOOKS.

The story of a Jewish family scattered across time and generations to remote corners of the world, from Poland to Cape Town. 260pp, SOUTH AFRICA. KWELA BOOKS, 079570190X

Second novel by the South African writer. Two children are found living in a cave in the Cederberg. The story follows their attempted integration into society, and the mystery hidden in the mountains. 191pp, SOUTH AFRICA. KWELA BOOKS.

Debut novel set in and around a dilapitated building in Hillbrow. For more than ten years, six guys live in room 207 of this block of flats: they are Matome, Molamo, Zulu-boy, D'nice, Modishi and the nameless narrator. By day, they are hustlers - they hustle production companies, they have their own music company, they survive. At night, they party, and they're pushing corruption, as the narrator would say. They are conmen, and they are streetwise. By day, and by night, women flock around them. 256pp, SOUTH AFRICA. KWELA BOOKS.

A humorous and evocative story of a young woman growing up in South Africa. 166pp, SOUTH AFRICA. RAVAN PRESS.

A new fictional work by the acclaimed poet and author which describes the human dramas of South Africans who return home and the dislocation experienced by the people who discover a country very different from the one they left behind. 364pp, SOUTH AFRICA. RAVAN PRESS, 1869170040

Set in Durban in the first half of the twentieth century, and steeped in the rich imagery of Indian traditional dance and mythology, this is another sensuous, vividly detailed romance from the author of 'The Heart Knows No Colour'. 2582pp, SOUTH AFRICA. KWELA BOOKS.

A complex novel which presents the dilemma of a white man who fights for justice in apartheid South Africa. 239pp, SOUTH AFRICA. RAVAN PRESS.

New fiction with a South African setting. Its succulent red fruit fascinates the local elders, but, when it causes tragedy, the seed becomes prohibited and knowledge of it is fiercely defended. When modern-day forensic anthropologist, Professor Sherwood, stumbles across the seed, grasped in an ancient skeletal hand, his curiosity is roused and he starts to seek answers in forbidden places. However, when it causes tragedy, will Sherwood’s curiosity be worth the price? A story of how people mythologise what they cannot understand scientifically. 72pp, UK. ATHENA PRESS.

A gripping story of conspiracy and psychological intrigue. Mathew has been working at Thompson's Manufacturing for five years when Brenda joins the firm as a secretary. He is arrogant, conservative and wants desperately to shock the Establishment, yet lacks courage to act. She is clever, seductive and beguiling. Both of them feel cheated and want revenge. 216pp, SOUTH AFRICA. JACANA MEDIA.

Jamie, the central character, is introduced as a somewhat naïve student of the 1960s, with strong views on racial inequality. As a result, he is detained by the security police. Days after his release, he and Jenny, a ballet student with whom he is deeply in love, leave South Africa for England. A dozen years later, on hearing that his beloved younger brother is dying in Cape Town, he returns without the visa he requires. 279pp, SOUTH AFRICA. JONATHAN BALL PUBLISHERS.

Stories presenting a vivid series of characters creating a portrait of the vanishing world of the San with tenderness, insight and humour. Awarded the Herman Charles Bosman Prize for English Fiction. 192pp, SOUTH AFRICA. KWELA BOOKS.

It is August on the highveld, a time of dust, wind and melancholy. Distracted only for a moment by the unremarkable person in the cinema noisily excavating his popcorn, Deanna's real concern is that she might be HIV positive, having stabbed herself in the thumb after giving an injection to a patient. 245pp, SOUTH AFRICA. PICADOR AFRICA.

A debut novel set in Cape Town in 1980s and 1990s telling the story of a young woman's loss, and ultimate reclamation of a childhood sense of freedom and self. 128pp, SOUTH AFRICA. KWELA BOOKS.

Second edition. London, the summer of 2003. Issa Shamsuddin, a South African history student living in Finsbury Park, vanishes without trace. Did Issa decide to disappear, or was he 'disappeared'? Why? Issa's friend Katinka, his 'brother' Kagiso, mother Dr Vasinthe Kumar and London neighbour Frances reconstruct their memories of the missing man, looking for clues in the past that might explain the riddle of the present. Notes, 248pp, SOUTH AFRICA. JACANA MEDIA.

A war correspondent sets out from Amsterdam to South Africa to piece together the fragmented history of Ace and Rem, two brothers from South Africa. Their bizarre and disturbing scrapbook recounts a suspenseful tale of trauma and heartbreak that crosses two continents and leaves a trail of shattered lives in its wake. A multi-layered novel that investigates the eviscerating effect that intense trauma can have on a young boys mind. 213pp, SOUTH AFRICA. JACANA MEDIA.

Now in paperback. Acclaimed first novel set in the violent reality of rural South Africa and the struggle to find forgiveness for the past. 304pp, UK. PENGUIN BOOKS.

A run-down block of flats in central Cape Town becomes a young girl's gallery of self-discovery in this moving story of the emotional carnage caused by civil wars in Africa. Drug dealers from Nigeria, Zimbabwean wire-workers, immigrants from Rwanda and Sudan, a Mozambican refugee - all escaping the ruins of war in the peace of the new South Africa - bear down on her fragile world, then scoop her into theirs. Skyline is an unflinching look at one girl's coming of age in the colourful and violent streets of a city waking up to the rest of Africa. 171pp, SOUTH AFRICA. AFRICAN SUN PRESS.

Multi award-winning debut novel, capturing apartheid era Afrikaner family life in South Africa. 200pp, UK. ABACUS.

Debut novel set in late 1980s South Africa, exploring ways in which resistance politics affected education. Includes glossary. 198pp, SOUTH AFRICA. JONATHAN BALL PUBLISHERS.

Chin Govender, the favoured son of Cato Manor, returns home to his estranged family in the late 1940s after years away, bringing with him an astounding tale that spans the physical and political landscape of South Africa. It chronicles his exploits from a penniless wine steward in East London to become a successful hotel owner in District Six, Cape Town. A fictional tour de force that paints an evocative portrait of five generations of descendants of former indentured Indian labourers and their struggle to build an identity in an emerging South Africa. 326pp, SOUTH AFRICA. JACANA MEDIA.

Satirical novel with political, cultural and sexual subtexts played out by a diverse host of extraordinary characters. 419pp, SOUTH AFRICA . SPEARHEAD.

Comic bildungsroman. It's South Africa, 1990. The country still squirms under the iron fist of apartheid. Two major events are about to happen: The release of Nelson Mandela, and more importantly, it's Spud Milton's first year at an elite boys only private boarding school. Cursed with parents from well beyond the lunatic fringe, a senile granny, and a dormitory full of strange characters, Spud has to forge a new life for himself in this foreign and sometimes hostile environment. 389pp, SOUTH AFRICA. PENGUIN BOOKS SOUTH AFRICA.

An adventure story first published in 1884 in response to the diamond rush in Kimberley. This new translation, by Stephen Gray, reintroduces characters critical of British expansionism, omitted from the first English language edition. Illustrated with engraving from the original edition. 252pp, SOUTH AFRICA. PROTEA BOOK HOUSE.

Unrest in Cape Town one stormy winter in 1980 causes two pupils to seek shelter at the home of Anna Rossouw, a young white teacher at a Coloured high school. 190pp, SOUTH AFRICA. DAVID PHILIP.

His fourth novel about life under apartheid in Cape Town. 168pp, UK. HEINEMANN AFRICAN WRITERS SERIES.

1974 1967 0435901524 Paperback

Edited by Stephen Gray this was the first English novel by the author to be published, and is widely regarded as a classic record of the Second Anglo Boer war. 304pp, SOUTH AFRICA. HUMAN & ROUSSEAU.

A landmark novel set in the rural Karoo towards the end of the nineteenth century. Schreiner tells the story of two cousins brought up on a lonely bible dominated farm in the mountain veld of South Africa and who dream of a better reality and self fulfilment. This edition includes an introduction by Cherry Clayton. 281pp, SOUTH AFRICA. AD DONKER.

Lucky has been brought up in a small rural black community. But is he really black? The others tease him because of his light brown eyes and blond hair. He has vague notions of having been abducted from his white family, and there are remnants of Afrikaans words somewhere in his head. What is it to be African? What does a family mean to a growing child? Does it matter what language you speak or think in? What if you're not even sure of your name? 125pp, SOUTH AFRICA . JACANA MEDIA.

The child of a forbidden marriage, Maha grows up with her parents in Cape Town. But when they are killed, her staid Indian grandparents take her to Durban. Maha treats us to the joys and sorrows of her passionate young heart, and a life in which she's not. Gloss, 288pp, SOUTH AFRICA. KWELA BOOKS.

Set in rural South Africa at a time when cattle were wealth and a king's word was law, this novel tells the story of Ramoipone Mathe, a preacher with revolutionary ideas and a habit of stirring up old jealousies and passions. 151pp, SOUTH AFRICA. KWELA BOOKS.

Adele is dying and needs to be brought home. Her two daughters meet up after many years apart, to take care of her in her fading days, in an old house in the Western Cape village of Vergenoeg. Bella, the younger, is single, bohemian, a singer living in Paris, a rebel. San, the well-groomed older sister, is a responsible mother, domesticated and far more conservative. Their contact with death forces them to face the reality of their lives, which is not what it appears to be. An intimate account of the relationship between mother and daughters, and a reflective squaring-up to death. 288pp, SOUTH AFRICA. DOUBLE STOREY BOOKS.

The unsparing story of the coming of age of a young street child called Azure trying to make ends meet in Cape Town. 164pp, SOUTH AFRICA. DAVID PHILIP.

A novel set in post apartheid South Africa as a fictional party wins the second democratic elections. Dr Salman Khan, a cabinet minister, has his eye on the presidency. 156pp, SOUTH AFRICA. PICADOR AFRICA.

Fictional account of the life of a woman who lived in the Roggeveld in the latter part of the nineteenth century. On her deathbed she recalls a life of isolation and loneliness, her role that of a witness. Witness to the events in her family - the effect of her mother's increasingly overbear-ing behaviour; the relationship between her two brothers and the young woman they both loved. The woman's hesitant, faltering reminiscing is an attempt to understand the various injustices suffered and to unravel the secrets behind the events which led to the death of one of her brothers. 224pp, SOUTH AFRICA. HUMAN & ROUSSEAU.

2005 0798145528 Paperback

Peter asks Steve to come and visit him at the hotel of which he is now the manager. Peter senses that his best friend has changed but reckons he owes him a visit and may just get the chance to land a juicy steenbras while he's there. Peter and girlfriend make the trip out to see Steve and it becomes apparent that Steve is not the friend he used to be. It all starts to go a bit pear-shaped. 216pp, SOUTH AFRICA. Compress.

La Guma's fifth novel explores the violence of forced removals. 119pp, UK. HEINEMANN AFRICAN WRITERS SERIES.

1979 0435902121 Paperback

Matthew doesn't know why he sometimes has to hide inside the towel-bin. It has something to do with his mother, Nomvula, the theatre's Xhosa laundry maid, and her relationship with Gustaf Frazier, actor, radio impresario and owner of their back-yard home. A cosy set-up that is stretched to its limits by the inclusion of Sterlington Buthelezi - con-man, prophet, pioneer African aviator and trumpet-repairman extraordinaire. The Second World War sweeps Matthew away from the contradictions of his birth - to the Sphinx and back, and across the sea to the Indian Ocean island town of Diego Suarez. We follow him through wartime travails in North Africa, where he learns of Africa's rich heritage, and back to South Africa where he tries to free himself from the consequences of lust and loyalty - dreaming of his love in Diego Suarez and encountering again the flamboyant Sterlington as the latter plots his triumphant final flight across the ruined countryside. 270pp, SOUTH AFRICA. UMUZI.

More than twenty years after making an important promise to her friend Maria, Catherine returns to Hebron, the highveld farm where she was born. There, she finds Maria working for Tom, the new owner of the farm. The secrets and shadows from their pasts threaten their intertwined relationships. 226pp, SOUTH AFRICA. DAVID PHILIP.

A new edition of the author's first novel, originally published in 1981. Written over a period of six years, it is set in the South African township of Alexandra during the time of Apartheid. Serote explores the interior lives of a range of characters who change and develop as their political and social context sharpen. 299pp, SOUTH AFRICA. PICADOR AFRICA, 0958470847

Absorbing award winning debut novel by South African writer. Set in the claustrophobic society of apartheid South Africa. The central character grapples with growing up under an oppressive regime, its impact on personal relationships, and the consequences of challenging the political system. Includes glossary. 357pp, UK. CROCUS BOOKS.

2005 0946745676 Paperback

A story of tension and change in a small town. A book once banned under Apartheid. 320pp, SOUTH AFRICA. DAVID PHILIP.

THE TRAP concerns a farmer, Van Schoor, and his servants, Willem and Setole. As the story rises to its violent climax, Van Schoor finds that he has not only betrayed Setole, but also himself. A DANCE IN THE SUN tells of two hitch-hikers on their way to Cape Town who stop for the night on an isolated Karoo farm and are drawn into mysterious happenings. pp. 205, SOUTH AFRICA. DAVID PHILIP.

The story of a South African man who returns home and finds the one woman who remembers his past: his nanny. Together they travel through the nation, redis-covering the child he once was and meeting the country he had denied. He meets up with old school friends and discovers unexpected new friends as his travels reinvigorate his love for his country and its peoples. 308pp, SOUTH AFRICA. comPRESS.

Jake Tromp's wife has left him. But he still has guns. He makes do, operating as a private eye from a second-floor office, next to a prostitute's parlour. What else is an old-South African soldier to do in the new country? Tromp chooses his clients unwisely. Like the man who instructs him to kidnap a shady businessman's daughter. Only, is it the right girl whom Tromp and his fumbling assistant Frikkie capture? Soon they're shackled with two kidnapped girls, one of whom is more street-savvy than Tromp and Frikkie put together. The sassy lass not only hits it off with Omo, her Nigerian keeper, she also decides to manage her own kidnapping. From Florida her rich Cuban daddy - believing Fidel Castro to be behind his daughter's disappearance - sends two heavies to find his girl. Soon, Cape Town is crawling with Cubans. Or is it? Tromp, who has been known to try a few tricks of his own, plays the two sides against each other. Until the police get wind of the whole thing Tromp's last stand is a comical romp through the under-world. 303pp, SOUTH AFRICA. UMUZI.

Reissued to coincide with a major feature film adaptation, which was the winner of the 2006 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. This is a deeply affecting novel by one of South Africa's greatest contemporary writers. Set amidst the sprawling Johannesburg township of Soweto, where survival is the primary objective, Tsotsi traces six days in the life of a ruthless young gang leader. Tsotsi has repressed his past and forgotten his true name; he exists only to stage and execute vicious crimes. After beating one of his own gang almost to death in an argument, Tsotsi attempts to rape a woman in a grove of bluegum trees. She manages to escape but not before thrusting a parcel into his hands. It contains a baby with 'a face that was small and black and older than anything he had ever seen in his life', a child that will mark the first stage of his long, reluctant path to redemption. 240pp, UK. CANONGATE.

Novel about the terrible history of violence in southern Africa and about the common humanity of all races. 304pp, UK. QUARTET.

Driven by the horrors of slavery to commit an unspeakable crime, Sila van den Kaap, a slave woman in eighteenth-century South Africa, narrowly escapes the gallows to be confined to the notorious prison on Robben Island. 360pp, USA. HANDSEL BOOKS.

A lawyer reluctantly decides to defend an assassin, and so puts his own life in danger. Set in an unnamed republic, this novel was born out of the turmoil in South Africa. 230pp, UK. HEINEMANN AFRICAN WRITERS SERIES.

First UK edition of this acclaimed novel. Cornelius Molapo urban dandy, poet, dancer, fiery but fickle political orator is not the first person you'd choose to lead the revolution. And no one is more surprised than Corny when he's approached by the National Liberation Movement and ordered to lead a peasant uprising in remote Tabanyane right now. Little does Cornelius suspect that he is a pawn in a much bigger political game: the NLM has its own reasons for deploying this reluctant revolutionary. Glossary. 308pp, UK. AYEBIA.

Epistolary comic novel by South Africa's soi-disant foremost counter-culture revolutionary and director of the first feature length film shot entirely on a mobile 'phone, SMS SUGAR MAN. 191pp, SOUTH AFRICA. JACANA MEDIA.

These historical novels, set in the beloved countryside of Leipoldt's youth, heighten the experience of visitors to the Cedarberg, and recall the history of the Clanwilliam district with an immediacy that renders the past clearly and endearingly recognisable in the present. It was C Louis Leipoldt's vision that his trilogy of novels, Gallows Gecko, Stormwrack and The Mask, should be published under the title The Valley. This is the first publication of Leipoldt's entire original text. Maps, Photos, 677pp, SOUTH AFRICA. STORMBERG PUBLISHERS.

A novel of South African history. 270pp. SOUTH AFRICA. HUMAN & ROUSSEAU.

Novel that begins with the arrival in South Africa of Roland Carey, who is trying to establish what happened to his great uncle who, in spite of his public school and Oxbridge background, came to Africa to find himself as an adventurer. On his way to Kimberley, he meets John Gumede, who had spent some time in England, and they develop a close bond. A relationship between a white and black person was exceptional in British-controlled colonial Africa at that time and leads to all sorts of conflicts, particularly after Roland fathered a son with the daughter of an African priest whom he had met through Gumede. A fictional representation of the attitudes and assumptions of racial superiority that played so dramatic a part in South Africa's history. Gloss, 350pp, SOUTH AFRICA. JONATHAN BALL PUBLISHERS.

The story of a family's struggle against oppression. 240pp, SOUTH AFRICA. DAVID PHILIP.

A novel set among development workers on a Poynesian island. HEINEMANN AFRICAN WRITERS.

Set in a fishing village in South Africa, this is a story of the collapse and reconstruction of identity . Later Jimmy returns to this backwater and relives tensions which threaten to destroy him. An extraordinary sensitive novel. 256pp, UK. SERIF.

Sensational debut novel set in Hillbrow, microcosm of all the contradictions, horrors and dark attractions in the South African psyche. Packed with AIDS, xenophobia, suicide, violence and the afterlife. 124pp, SOUTH AFRICA. UNIVERSITY OF KWAZULU-NATAL PRESS.