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.

A dark winter's evening. A lonely smallholding outside Johannesburg. A brutal shooting. The murder of solitary divorcee Annette Botha appears to be a botched hijacking, just another senseless crime in the surge of violence sweeping South Africa. With his career at stake, newly promoted police superintendent David Patel is desperate to get results on this case. When his ex-boss's daughter Jade de Jong arrives back in South Africa after an unexplained absence, she offers to help him with the investigation. Jade soon makes some troubling discoveries. 238pp, SOUTH AFRICA. UMUZI.

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.

Who is the serial killer, and what motivates him? When public relations consultant Lucy Khambule, young, beautiful and ambitious, receives a call from Napoleon Dingiswayo - a convicted serial killer, nicknamed The Butcher by the media - she sets out to fulfil her childhood dream of writing a book by answering this question. Napoleon is an all too obliging subject, but Lucy discovers that her choice of topic is not for the faint-hearted. Soon after meeting him in Pretoria's notorious C-Max Prison her world is turned upside down by a number of violent and disturbing events. Lucy must decide what price she is willing to pay to pursue her dream. 234pp, SOUTH AFRICA. MACMILLAN SOUTH AFRICA.

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 AFRICAN WRITERS SERIES.

Tale that dramatically renders 80 years of Indian servitude in South Africa. The story ebbs and flows through four generations, from the abhorrent conditions of indentured labour in the canefields of Natal to Durban's Duchene, and later the Casbah district, home of the infamous 'Grey Street system'. 212pp, SOUTH AFRICA. STE PUBLISHERS.

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.

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.

Zakira, a Curry Mafia princess, is kept on a short but well-funded leash by her wealthy and conservative parents - or so they think. The meek and mild sari-wearing self that she projects for their benefit is a polar opposite to the vodka-guzzling, smoking, night-clubbing Zakira that falls in love with Sofie, the punky-gorgeous leader of Al Sacareen - a group of girls who will change her life forever. In this, his first novel, Zinaid Meeran explores the fluid nature of identity and searches for the liberation of the individual from the tyranny of what he calls groupthink. 180pp, SOUTH AFRICA. JACANA MEDIA.

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.

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.

2006 0795702302 Paperback

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.

Sis Lettie, streetwise philosopher of the shebeens and entrepreneur par excellence takes the back seat as her son Kokoroshe, street urchin turned lawyer, takes centre stage. This is a multi-layered family saga, a riveting tale of love, betrayal, and a search for identity - sexual and otherwise. 224pp, 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.

2000 079570108X Paperback

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.

Thandiwe lives by her own rules. She shamelessly sells her body on the streets of Yeoville and views her job as no different from those of young black graduates who take up affirmative actio posts as perpetual juniors under soul-destroying mentors.Thandiwe's searing views on the post-apartheid corporate world become public when she is approached by Kwena, a young film-maker who is interested in telling the stories of prostitutes and the shameful secrets of many. 108pp, SOUTH AFRICA. UNIVERSITY OF KWAZULU-NATAL PRESS.

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.

A blend of fact and fiction that explores the fine line between frailty and cruelty. South Africa in the late 1980s. A young warden is arrested after killing, in a senseless shooting spree, 7 black members of a karate team. Admitting guilt and accepting his fate, he refuses to speak about his crime. A Pro Deo attorney is appointed to defend him, who in turn secures the services of a senior counsel from Durban. In the process it turns out that the young man has been doing service on death row, supporting the condemned in their last days with care that was almost tender, before effecting their slaughter at the gallows. 416pp, SOUTH AFRICA. UMUZI.

Gerry Aarons has found out a terrible secret about the father she has never known that sends her life along a self-destructive path. She and her mother are locked in a damaging war of wills. And it is Adigar, the visiting monk from Sri Lanka, who finally helps Gerry to understand her troubled life in a different light. 176pp, SOUTH AFRICA. JACANA MEDIA.

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.

"I'm sixteen years old and I killed a boy of seventeen. Yes, I admit it. I stabbed him. I stabbed him in the heart with a knife which happened to have been in my pocket." These words are recorded by Errol Stevens in his diary, which he writes in the aftermath of committing a terrible crime. Errol is a 16-year-old schoolboy growing up in 1960s South Africa. He is intellectually streets ahead of his peers, but physically and emotionally he is backward and underdeveloped. The life of this strange and courageous boy unfolds as he tells the story of his childhood, and describes events in his young life that go some way to explaining the tragedy that unfolds in an ordinary school in an ordinary town in South Africa. A disturbing novel about the turmoil and torments experienced by a teenager who is being tried for the murder of another boy. 144pp, SOUTH AFRICA. DAVID PHILIP.

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.

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.

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.

Some would call Detective Benny Griessel a legend. Others would call him a drunk. Either way, he has trodden on too many toes over the years ever to reach the top of the promotion ladder, and now he concentrates on staying sober and mentoring the new generation of crime fighters. But when an American backpacker disappears in Cape Town, panicked politicians know who to call: Benny has just thirteen hours to save the girl, save his career and crack open a conspiracy which threatens the whole country. 416pp, UK. HODDER HEADLINE.

Thirtieth birthdays loom… Skeletons come creeping out of closets… How will this birthday end?

Linda has just cast off yet another lover, while Dikeledi can't seem to pin her fast-talking lawyer down to talk about marriage. Nolwazi has a secret – one she can't share even with her closest friends, while Sade has found the perfect man, and a new life that will shut out the horrors of her past forever. Or will it...? Linda, Dikeledi, Nolwazi and Sade are about to discover more with the wisdom that comes with being a year older. After all, they’re young, gifted and black in a booming new South Africa. 328pp, SOUTH AFRICA. MACMILLAN SOUTH 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.

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.

Story of a middle-aged woman who was attacked, raped and murdered in her home by armed robbers. Voysey-Briag writes: I keep her alive so that her story continues. I invite her family members, those who are alive and dead, to tell their stories through her. She is the main protagonist and the narrator... I wanted to pose questions. We love our grandmothers and grandfathers, our families, but what did they perpetuate the system, to make apartheid work and flourish? That's what I explore in the manuscript, the cruelty that has always existed in South Africa, the violence over 400 years. Winner of the EU Literary Award 2007/08. 230pp, SOUTH AFRICA. JACANA MEDIA.

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.

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.

Trinity Luhabe is so OVER the whole Robben Island thing. Sure, her dad was one of the last activists to be imprisoned there, but he's now a billionaire mining magnate. We all have to move on, right? And Trinity is moving on with a vengeance. She's just passed Matric at an exclusive private school, and is all set to take Rhodes University by storm. She's got the looks. She's got the brains (sort of). She's a girl with a plan. Okay, it's not a plan she's prepared to share with just anyone - especially not her feminist, do-gooder mother. 296pp, SOUTH AFRICA. JONATHAN BALL.

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.

1993 0435905880 Paperback

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.

New edition. Milla, trapped in silence by a deadly paralysing illness, confined to her bed, struggles to make herself heard by her maidservant and now nurse, Agaat. Contrary, controlling, proud, secretly affectionate, the two women, servant and mistress, are more than matched. Life for white farmers like Milla in the South Africa of the 1950s was full of promise. Forty years later, the world Milla knew is as if seen in a mirror, and all she has left are memories and diaries. As death draws near, she looks back on good intentions and soured dreams, on a brutal marriage and a longed-for only son scarred by his parents' battles, and on a lifetime's tug-of-war with Agaat. Translated by Michiel Heyns. Gloss, 625pp, UK. ABACUS.

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.

Translated from the Afrikaans ONS IS NIE ALMAL SO NIE by Andre Brink. What does a pretty 1950s Afrikaans housewife do when the walls start closing in? When her husband is an embittered Ben Schoeman-supporter who struggles with an asthma pump, and her father sees communists and Catholics behind every bush. When the only relief is the annual ATKV concert in Hartenbos? And when her salt-of-the-earth neighbours are suddenly forced to pack up and move away? Through the eyes of a child, Jeanne Goosen tells the story of how Doris van Greunen tries to break out of her world. 148pp, SOUTH AFRICA. KWELA BOOKS.

Whilst the traditional African society is undergoing change, two important forces render this community unstable. Firstly and visibly, a drought, and secondly and less visibly, the forces of modernity and political change. This tale of a rural family forced to move to a township addresses the pull of the land and tradition on people who need to survive in a modern South Africa. 131pp, SOUTH AFRICA. KWELA BOOKS.

Three fictional lives collide in Cape Town. Bernal Díaz del Castillo is a tattoo artist who believes he is five hundred years old. Dying, he feels the need to chronicle his remarkable experiences. Luke Turner is a freelance journalist with three obsessions: cooking, women, and the art of tattoo. His ironic style masks the emptiness of his identity. Obsessed with becoming an illustrated man, and so becomes the perfect canvas for Díaz. Malibongwe Kwetani is a child from Khayalitsha, on the outskirts of Cape Town. Born on the margins, living without means or hope, he is driven to the streets, traversing the city like a ghost in its architecture. Unlike Luke, he does not have time or opportunity for questions of identity. 256pp, SOUTH AFRICA . KWELA.

Themba Limba is a family man who is caught between his flourishing career as a teacher and municipal councillor in the township of Sekunjalo, and his overriding sexual interests. Despite his attempts to maintain his status in the community, his actions eventually lead to his downfall. What follows is an account - sometimes tragic, occasionally humorous, and always compelling - of Themba's efforts to regain his dignity and pride in the eyes of his family and community. A novel about the challenges of manhood in contemporary South African society. It interrogates the dynamics of township life and the human and socio-economic realities of the most impoverished communities in post-apartheid South Africa. 162pp, SOUTH AFRICA. UNIVERSITY OF KWAZULU-NATAL PRESS.

"I'm gonna tell you all about it, Mom. I'm gonna tell it like I'm on the end of your bed, talking to you. I'm not gonna cover up, cause there's no need. You'll see how its all a flippin miracle. The whole weird year. Its only one year in my life, Ma, but its all the stuff you slept through when I was a kid. All the stuff you fished through when you got up. I'm warning you, Ma, this is the truth." A gritty, hopeful, funny novel about a prostitute in Muizenberg, Cape Town, who through a series of miracles and accidents finds her way back into life. 320pp, SOUTH AFRICA. MODJAJI BOOKS.

Espionage thriller set in South Africa. Gloss, 310pp, UK. PAN MACMILLAN.

Now available in paperback. A novel in which a former soft porn star returns to South Africa for his dying mother. In recounting his life and the haunting death of his son, he looks for spiritual redemption. 248pp, UK. HODDER HEADLINE.

A novel of human drama which takes place during a weekend in the life of an alchoholic, white seaman who finds himself in a shebeen in Cape Town's District Six. 120pp, SOUTH AFRICA. RAVAN PRESS.

Now available in paperback. When a woman goes missing from a peaceful town in Southern Sweden, Inspector Kurt Wallander's instinct tells him that she will never be found alive. However, the investigation into her murder will lead him into the murky political waters of South Africa as it makes its transition from an Apartheid government and he will become entangle with the murderous terrorism of people who are intent on halting the course of history by any means. Maps, 440pp, UK. HARVILL.

A collection of stories about black Johannesburg in the late 1950s which was banned in South Africa until 1982. Stories and reports include Crepuscule, Kwashior-kor, The Urchin, The Suit, Ten to Ten, The Dube Train, Terror in the Trains, Boozers Beware of Barberton! Brothers in Christ, Nude Pass Parade, Let the People Drink, Political Offenders Banned to the Bush, Henry Nxumalo, The Boy with the Tennis Racket, Requiem for Sophiatown and the Bottom of the Bottle. 115pp, SOUTH AFRICA. DAVID PHILIP.

A journalist who yearns to write fantasy fiction is awakened one morning by his country's President who has come to ask a favour. A first novel by a leading young South African writer of poetry, short stories and children's books. Winner of the 1980 Olive Schreiner Award. Gloss, 203pp, SOUTH AFRICA. RAVAN PRESS.

New in paperback. Bullied at school for his suspiciously dark skin and lack of a father, Hart soon learns to fight and win. At eighteen, his world is shaken by his mothers revelation that his anonymous father is willing to give him a vast inheritance provided he can prove himself worthy of the prize as an officer in the Kings Dragoon Guards. At a time when racism and prejudice are rife in Victorian society, Hart struggles to come to terms with his identity. Forced to leave the army, he decides to head to South Africa, and a fresh start. But George Hart has soldiering in his blood, and once in Africa the urge to serve again is strong. Yet now he is caught between two fierce and unyielding forces as Britain drives towards war with the Zulus. Hart must make a choice and fight for his life. 480pp, UK. HODDER HEADLINE.