Follow-up to WAYS OF DYING and centred on Toloki, the professional mourner, as he makes his way through a surreal America on the eve of the 2004 Presidential election. Viewing American cultural and political life from an outsider's standpoint, Toloki is taken in by an impoverished family; he befriends the son, Obed; falls in love with his melancholy, sister, Orpah; and learns to quilt from their mother, Ruth. Explores the legacy of the Civil War and the Underground Railroad. 312pp, USA. PICADOR USA.

US Edition. Award winning novel that weaves the 19th century story of Nongqawuse, whose prophecies brought famine to the Xhosa nation, with contemporary characters and conflicts. 320pp, USA. PICADOR USA.

The background to this novel is the notorious 1971 case in which nineteen citizens of Excelsior in the Free State were charged with breaking apartheid's Immorality Act, which forbade sex between black and white. In an extraordinary alchemy of words into art, Mda tells the story of a family at the heart of a scandal. 268pp, USA. PICADOR USA.

Mda paints a vivid portrait of an uncertain South Africa by telling the story of Dikosha, a beautiful woman who lives for dancing and for song and her twin brother, Radisene who works in Maseru. While his fortunes in the city rise and fall, Dilkosha remains in her remote mountain village, never leaving and never ageing. As the years pass, the community watches, comments and passes judgment. 207pp, USA. PICADOR USA, 031242325X

US Edition. A tale of a professional mourner and his odyssey from a rural community to the shabby, vibrant outskirts of a contemporary South Africa city, where the beautiful and tragic Noria helps him to heal the past. 212pp, USA. PICADOR USA, 0312420919

Now in paperback. The Whale Caller is living a quiet life in his bungalow on South Africa's Cape, spending his days calling to the whales out to sea, eating macaroni cheese each night. His life is peaceful if a little eccentric until a drunken woman in stilettos who has been following him about for weeks, finally manages to invade his life for good. Together they form a strange and intense love affair, brimming with alcohol and jealousy, which threatens to destroy them both. 224pp, UK. PENGUIN BOOKS.