At the half-way point along South Africa's great highway - the N1 running from Cape Town to Johannesburg - lies the small town of Beaufort West. With its prison in the middle of town, on an island in the highway, it's a surreal road-stop that offers everything a traveller might want - food, gas, a place to stay, an hour of sex. Mikhael Subotzky considers the town, its vivid characters and poignant social landscapes, in a photo essay that confronts central issues of contemporary South African society. His first photobook, it is exquisitely produced on a large portfolio scale. With an introduction by leading South African writer Jonny Steinberg and Subotzky's own commentary on the photographs, the book is both a document of social evidence and the visual manifesto of the best of the new wave of South African art photographers. 80pp, UK. CHRIS BOOT.

The culmination of over ten years work by the award winning South African photographer Jodi Bieber. Beginning in 1994 after South Africa's first democratic elections, the book focuses on a generation of young people growing up on the fringes of South African society. Bieber takes us into one of the toughest neighbourhoods of Johannesburg - into a world where gangs rule, where children live with HIV/Aids, and where prostitutes vary their rates depending on the colour of their clients. 144pp, UK. DEWI LEWIS PUBLISHING.

A collection of b/w photographs capturing the spirit of 1950s South Africa. Many of these images have become iconic, from the photographs of Nelson Mandela before his imprisonment, to the destruction of Sophiatown and to the portrait of 'Mr Drum'. 125pp, SOUTH AFRICA. PROTEA BOOK HOUSE.

A rich collection of vivid photographs, capturing images of the homes, cultures, people and streets of the communities of the Cape Flats. Working during the late 1980s, Ledochowski highlights the vibrant cultures of the area. Maps, gloss, 210pp, SOUTH AFRICA. UNISA PRESS, 0620304588

2003 Paperback

Setting out with these words from Abdullah Ibrahim's jazz composition Manenberg, Lurie explores its significance in a series of black and white portraits of a place and a community that exist on the very fringes of Cape Town. Built as a dormitory suburb for the working people of the city, it is the product and symbol of dispossession and exclusion from Cape Town's heart. Here, in a mirror image of the beautiful and desirable city, life is lived at the very edge. And yet for all the distance that separates the township from the wealthy suburbs and central district, Manenberg is integral to the city. 128pp, SOUTH AFRICA. DOUBLE STOREY BOOKS.

A 'provocative body of photographic work' that 'uses the metaphorical power of shadow to foreground the shifting visibility of South Africa's black population post apartheid'. With essays by Leslie King-Hammond, Mongane Wally Serote and Lemuel Johnson. 31 photos in full colour. 96pp. USA. WASHINGTON U P.

This book celebrates some 50 projects of architectural merit that have been designed by South African architects since 1994. Through both text and full-colour photographs it explores the ways in which they have contributed to change in this country through their work and to the development of a new sense of cultural identity. 220pp, SOUTH AFRICA. DOUBLE STOREY BOOKS.

The long-awaited anthology of David Goldblatt's works, published on the occasion of the 2006 exhibition in Arles (with Martin Parr as curator), which afterward will tour internationally. David Goldblatt is South Africa's most important photographer. He has produced a body of work that is an original and extensive study of South Africa during and after apartheid. Goldblatt's photo-graphs are in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The South African National Gallery, Cape Town; the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; and in The Victoria and Albert Museum, London. In 2006, Goldblatt won the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography. 256pp, ITALY. CONTRASTO PRODUCTIONS.

2006 9788869650154 Hardback

Based on interviews with photographers, editors and curators, and through the analysis of photographs held in collections and displayed in museums, this book addresses the significance of photography in South Africa during the second half of the twentieth century. 356pp, SOUTH AFRICA. UNISA PRESS.

From 1982 to 1986, Roger Ballen, an American, travelled widely throughout South Africa, visiting its scattered towns and villages. During this time he developed a unique vision towards little-known corners and artefacts, trading stores, old houses and humble people. Textured with time, these photographs reveal the essence of these places. 75 b/w photos, 160pp, SOUTH AFRICA. PROTEA BOOK HOUSE.

In the early 1860s, Gustav Fritsch, a 25-year-old German medical doctor and anthropologist, travelled through southern Africa on a scientific expedition to study the 'native races', making great use of the new medium of photography. Fritsch's portraits of southern African people are extraordinary images, bringing to life a whole gallery of both known and unknown figures with astonishing veracity. Retrieved from archives in Germany and reproduced here in their entirety for the first time. Several essays describe Fritsch's journey and scientific project and set them in the context of his racial theories and life's work. 176pp, SOUTH AFRICA. JACANA MEDIA.

Ernest Cole, born 1940 in Eersterust, South Africa, started working as an assistant at Drum magazine in 1958. As a freelance photographer he began his seminal essay on what it meant to be black under apartheid in 1959. In 1966 he left his country with the dream of making a book that he knew was impossible to do in South Africa. House of Bondage, published in 1967, was immediately banned in South Africa, and so was he. He died in exile, in New York in 1990. This book will for the first time enable Ernest Cole to be seen in the perspective of international photography where he surely deserves an honoured place, not simply for his remarkable courage and determination in the face of state oppression but for the perceptiveness of his seeing eye and his ability to put what he saw into photographs of remarkable rigour, subtlety and elegance. 256pp, GERMANY. STEIDL VERLAG.

A series of black and white portraits by Zanele Muholi focuses on the commemoration and celebration of black lesbians' lives. Muholi embarked on this project in 2007, taking portraits of women from the townships in South Africa. In 2008, after the xenophobic and homophobic attacks that led to the mass displacement of people in that country, she decided to expand the ongoing series to include photographs of women from different countries. 70 photos, 96pp, GERMANY. PRESTEL.

Presents the work of 17 South African photographers, all of whom are currently living and working in the country. It features works produced between 2000 and 2010, as the first flush of post-democratic euphoria begins to fade. While the old fixed categories of black and white no longer hold, they have not easily been displaced by the ideal of a post-racial rainbow nation of citizens and subjects. In this fascinating and fraught political context, a new generation of outstanding photographers have joined the established doyens of South African image makers to produce startling and compelling work. The book and exhibition include renowned practitio-ners David Goldblatt and Santu Mofokeng, mid-career stars Guy Tillim, Pieter Hugo, Zwelethu Methethwa, Berni Searle, Jodi Bieber, and Terry Kurgan, and newcomers to the international stage Zanele Muholi, Hassan and Husain Essop, Roelof van Wyk, Graeme Williams, Kudzanai Chiurai, and Sabelo Mlangeni. 256pp, GERMANY. STEIDL VERLAG.

Retrospective of South Africa's pioneering documentary photographer with essays by leading writers and art historians. B/w ill, notes, bib, SPAIN. ACTAR, 8495273780

2001 Paperback

A stunning array of photographic portraits follows two major themes in the South African photographer's work--Beaches, portraits of beach bums, children, swimmers, and others taken at dusk and dawn on a Cape Town beach, and Uniforms, photographs of police, school children, security guards, and other people in uniform. 224 colour photos, 224pp, UK. BOOTH CLIBBORN EDITIONS

Accessible introduction to a wide range of painted homesteads belonging to rural black South Africans. Text in English, French and German. Col ill, 96pp, SOUTH AFRICA. STRUIK, 1868725170

A personal selection of Obie Oberholzer's best work over thirty years of journeys through Southern Africa. His photographs are shot with humour and compassion, and often breathtaking beauty. An addictive collection with many previously unpublished works. Also includes a selection of b/w photography. 132pp, SOUTH AFRICA. DOUBLE STOREY [JUTA], 1919930027

Visual description of the inequalities that exists between the different races that reside in Cape Town with Table Mountain as the on characteristic that they all have in common. Images of Table Mountain depicts the vast differences between Capetonians as well as their interrelations. The black and white images strongly depict the difference in the lifestyles and class of Capetonians. 132pp, SOUTH AFRICA. BELL-ROBERTS PUBLISHING.

Jazz King Pumpy Naidoo, Sheriff Khan, Te Salots, Amaranee Naidoo: these names, though unfamiliar to most, represent the rich and colourful stereotypes of The Indian in the pages of Drum magazine, which followed their exploits alongside Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela and the other now legendary names from that era. This is the first attempt to recover highlights this rich cultural history,70 b/w photos, 140pp, SOUTH AFRICA. BELL-ROBERTS PUBLISHING.

Field guide that shows readers the best places to photograph wildlife in South Africa. Much of the information regarding good wildlife photography is localised or knowledge specific to a certain area. This title allows people to gain insight as to where the best places are to photograph elephants in the Kruger Park, where you can easily find leopards, what time the sand grouse drink in the morning and a better place than Boulders Beach to photograph penguins. Col photos, 289pp, SOUTH AFRICA. JACANA MEDIA.

Collection of photographs on South Africa's transitional years, by an award win-ning cameramn killed during street violence nine days before the 1994 elections. 144pp, SOUTH AFRICA. KWELA BOOKS.

1998 0795700695 Hardback

Series of colour photographs that follow the fortunes of Johannesburg’s inner city residents as a new African city is forged after the apartheid era. Unusual format, this book unfolds concertina-style and when opened up, end-to-end, is 16 metres long. SOUTH AFRICA. STE PUBLISHERS.

2005 2350460142 Hardback

The new Constitutional Court of South Africa was inaugurated in 2004, ten years after the demise of apartheid and South Africas first democratic elections that brought the African National Congress and Nelson Mandela to power. This book celebrates not only the architectural innovations in the structure, such as the large-scale use of a passive heating and cooling system, but the atmosphere and mood of the Court, its openness, its ability to convey warmth and dignity at the same time, its reflection of the South African landscape and climate, its relationship to the surrounding metropolis, and its incorporation of the troubled history of the site the old Fort Prison of Johannesburg. Photographs by Angela Buckland. 178pp, SOUTH AFRICA. DAVID KRUT PUBLISHING.

Black-and-white photographs of 120 leading South African artists, writers, journalists. musicians and entertainers taken in their own homes. Accompanying text in English and Afrikaans. 260pp, SOUTH AFRICA. PROTEA BOOK HOUSE.

A selection of photographs by leading South African photographers capturing the spirit of the first decade of democracy. Chapters include cityscapes, youth, shelters, worship, sport and public affairs. Introduction by Mandla Langa. 280pp, SOUTH AFRICA. KMM REVIEW PUBLISHING.

A volume of photographs of South African people commissioned for an exhibition to launch South Africa's new Constitution Court. Also exhibited at the Photographer's Gallery in London 2004. Each photograph, from teen beauty queens to residents of old homes, and from long term prisoners to babies suffering from HIV/AIDS is accompanied by text explaining their story. 160pp, UK. TROLLEY, 1904563317

A record of the author's fifth photographic journey through Africa taking in parts of Kenya, Zimbabwe's Eastern Highlands, Mpumulanga, the Drakensberg, Grahamstown, the Overberg, the Hantam Karoo, and Luderitz. Large format, many colour photos, 179pp, SOUTH AFRICA. DAVID PHILIP.

Photographs of Strijdom van der Merwe's transient creations before they fade, are blown, or washed away. Eschewing the confines of studio and art gallery, he has made the vast outdoors his canvas, seeing possibilities in the patterns of the earth and its seasons. His media is the natural world, using sand, water, wood, rocks, taking into account the diversity of possibilities and development offered by the reflection of the sun and the movements of the wind. 125 col plates, SOUTH AFRICA. PROTEA BOOK HOUSE.

Coffee Table book of photography which looks into the homes of Cape Town's shack-lands. Includes poetry, interviews, quotes and history. 146 illustrations, 140 in colour. 146pp, UK. THAMES & HUDSON.

2002 0500511055 Paperback

David Goldblatt's work reflects a life-long exploration of the relationship between individual South Africans and the society they live in. This, his first extended photographic essay, was compiled in the 1960s. When finally published in 1975 as 'Some Afrikaners Photographed', the title angered many. Considered one of the major photographic works in this genre, the original book has never been reprinted and is almost impossible to obtain. Some Afrikaners Revisited not only offers an additional twenty images from the period not included in the original book, but also includes Goldblatt's notes on how these studies came into being, an essay by Ivor Powell and Antjie Krog's response to the images. 235pp, SOUTH AFRICA. UMUZI.

As the cultural and social hubs of South Africas townships, barbershops and salons serve not only as places to get your hair styled but as places to gather, gossip and come together as a community. They also happen to showcase sharp and snappy vernacular designs: renditions of the haircuts on offer as well as typographic demonstrations of each shops name. This book vivid photographs of these shops, their signage and their patrons alongside interviews with the proprietors, customers and the sign makers. 128pp, USA. MARK BATTY PUBLISHERS.

Presents a multi-hued collection of interiors that range from Dutch colonial to traditional wood and thatched-roof houses, townships, modern city apartments, and funky artist homes, reflecting the country's tumultuous political history, while celebrating its rich culture. 192pp, GERMANY. TASCHEN.

An open-ended essay which is a celebration and a portrait of life in Soweto today. With an introduction by Niq Mhlongo. 160pp, SOUTH AFRICA. JACANA MEDIA.

A collection of photographs showing the past and present of Soweto. Photographers include Alf Kumalo, Ernest Cole, Jurgen Schadeberg and Peter Magubane from the older generation, and Jodi Bieber, Themba Hadebe, Ruth Matau and Victor Matom from the younger generation. 128 pages, 83 illustrations in colour and duplex. Also includes an interview with Nelson Mandela. GERMANY. ARNOLDSCHE VERLAGSANSTALT, 3897900130

A collection of photographs chronicling the lives of people living in modern Soweto. 99pp, SOUTH AFRICA. PROTEA BOOK HOUSE.

A photographic journey through Cape Town's District Six. The luminous b/w images are accompanied by text by Brian Barrow. 64pp, SOUTH AFRICA. TAFELBERG.

A photographic essay of life in Johannesburg. It reveals Jozi as a city of contrast and difference. The vibrancy and diversity of Joburg frame the stark disparities of income and poverty that characterise Africa's richest city. Particular mention is made of the plight of the inner-city poor. Schadeberg's photographs are enhanced with text by Stephan Hofstatter (investigative journalist and writer); Mak Manaka (poet, performer, writer); Lebo Mashile (poet, performer, media personality); Carole Rothlisberger (magazine editor and writer); Colin Jiggs Smuts (novelist, educator and cultural activist); Stuart Wilson (researcher at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies); Gringo Wotshela (writer and film-maker). In partnership with the Centre for Applied Legal Studies, Wits University. 160pp, SOUTH AFRICA. PROTEA BOOK HOUSE.

This volume features the work of eight photographers whose careers straddle South Africa's transition to democracy. Almost all of them were members of Afrapix, the collective photo agency that played a central role in documenting the struggle against apartheid in the 1980s and early 1990s. At that time, more personal forms of photographic expression were suppressed as photographers responded to the imperative to record their society in turmoil; indeed, some saw themselves as activists in the struggle for democracy. The negotiated political settlement, culminating in the inclusive elections in April 1994, freed them to explore other, less overtly political subjects, broaden their scope beyond South Africa's borders, and re-examine their approach to photography. While there are obvious disjunctures between the earlier and later photographs, there are also significant continuities, and some images ask searching questions of the post-apartheid order. Includes the work of: David Goldblatt, George Hallett, Eric Miller, Cedric Nunn, Guy Tillim, Paul Weinberg, Graeme Williams and Gisele Wulfsohn. 160pp, SOUTH AFRICA. HIGHVELD PRESS.

A collaboration between two of the most critically acclaimed creative individuals at work in South Africa today, a photographer and a novelist, on a project that is the city of Johannesburg. Johannesburg is a fragmented city. It is not a place of smoothly integrated parts. So begins David Goldblatt's introduction to ‘TJ’, a book of photographs of Johannesburg. Commencing in the 1950s, his lens probes, documents and comments on life over six decades. Selected from a massive body of work, this superb distillation presents a unique pictorial history of the city. In a new novel by Ivan Vladislavic, a young man in Johannesburg receives an induction into the intricate nature of photography and artistic representation. The novel traces the young man as he heads into his career that takes him overseas and back, developing in the process an ever widening perspective on not only the social and political change in the country but also on questions to do with observation and the observing subject. It brings into sharp focus the history of South Africa’s recent past and the difficulty of imaging and re-imagining it. 456pp, ITALY. CONTRASTO PRODUCTIONS.

In a career spanning over half a century, Schadeberg has come to represent much more than the prototype of the visual storyteller. He epitomises the very best in photojournalism, a photographer with an uncanny sense of historical timing. This overview of his collection includes photographs in a distinct South African context, juxtaposed with timeless images of an international nature. The seminal works are represented, together with photographs published never before. Chronology, 142pp, SOUTH AFRICA. PROTEA BOOK HOUSE.

Since Apartheid's fall in 1994, South African photography has exploded from the grip of censorship onto the world stage. A key figure in this movement is Zwelethu Mthethwa, whose portraits powerfully frame black South Africans as dignified and defiant individuals, even under the duress of social and economic hardship. Photographing in urban and rural industrial landscapes, Mthethwa documents a range of aspects in South Africa, from domestic life and the environment to landscape and labour issues. Mthethwa's work challenges the conventions of both Western documentary work and African commercial studio photography, marking a transition away from the visually exotic and diseased and employing a fresh approach marked by colour and collaboration. 120pp, USA. APERTURE.