Wonders of the Western Cape

Autobiography of writer and activist Benson is full of interesting accounts of incidents in the tumultuous political and social history of South Africa over the last few decades. She was in the thick of the country's racial conflict and the author always seems more of a spectator than a participant, writing with a kind of star-struck quality about the notables she met. Benson interviewed and hobnobbed with such political luminaries as Nobel Peace Prize winner Chief Albert Lutuli, Walter Sisulu and Nelson Mandela. In the end, one must marvel at the remarkable elements that make up Benson's life, including her friendship with writer Alan Paton, her speech as the first South African to testify before the U.N.'s committee on apartheid and her house arrest in 1965 for activities deemed threatening to the state.

As a child, Slaughter was raped repeatedly by her father, beginning when she was six years old. Born in India about the time of independence, she and her family soon traveled back to England along with the rest of the British colonialists, where her father determined he could not live without the incipient power held by minor bureaucrats in colonial service to the Queen. In short order, Slaughter, her older sister, and her mother were following him to Africa, to the Kalahari Desert and the British protectorate known today as Botswana. Her mother's recurring depressions, worsened by the birth of a third daughter, and her father's frustration and anger with the approaching end of British colonialism and his own mental illness, led to the incest and eventual violence between him and his daughter. In beautifully painted prose, she conveys her great love for the magnificence of Africa. We are shown how she sought solace from her environment in an effort to blot out the pain of her father's betrayal and her mother's refusal to acknowledge the abuse.

The Boers of South Africa responded to Britain's annexation of the gold-and-diamond-rich Transvaal region by declaring war on October 11, 1899. The English believed the fighting would be over by Christmas -- never dreaming they were on the brink of one of the longest, bloodiest, most costly and humiliating military campaigns in their history.

A classic tale, passionately African, beautifully told and a profoundly compassionate story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son Absalom, set in the troubled and changing South Africa of the 1940s. Written with keen empathy and understanding that to read it is to share fully in the gravity of the characters' situations. It both touches your heart deeply and inspires a renewed faith in the dignity of mankind.

A tender, intensely moving and delightful journey through a white African girl's childhood. Born in England and now living in Wyoming, Fuller was conceived and bred on African soil during the Rhodesian civil war (1971-1979), a world where children over five "learned” how to load an FN rifle magazine, strip and clean all the guns in the house, and ultimately, shoot-to-kill." With a unique and subtle sensitivity to racial issues, Fuller describes her parents' racism and the wartime relationships between blacks and whites through a child's watchful eyes. Curfews and war, mosquitoes, land mines, ambushes and "an abundance of leopards" are the stuff of this childhood. But Fuller's remarkable affection for her parents (who are racists) and her homeland (brutal under white and black rule) shines through. The work captures the tone of a very young person caught up in her own small world as she witnesses a far larger historical event.

The life of a young girl in Durban, South Africa, during the implementation of apartheid. Being blessed by having enlightened parents and, as her father puts it, strong abstract reasoning, Dinah is appalled at the injustices imposed by the apartheid system. This shameful history is documented here in prose that is understandable, warm and sometimes humorous. Her experiences at her different schools, relationships with the various girlfriends and (later) men she meets, and her truly original family is presented with three-dimensional clarity. When as an adult she leaves for England, she finds she loves her new home, can remember with affection but not longing the positives of her childhood home, but is especially glad that "public holidays are called bank holidays because they aren't commemorating an endless succession of brutal events in which white persons w/gunpowder have laid waste to brown persons w/spears."

A hunting dog named Jock and his owner, a transport rider, narrates the story. Jock is the runt of the litter but the narrator likes him anyway. As the story goes Jock grows and learns to be a hunting dog in the Veld during the Transvaal gold rush. The book is broken up into many stories ~ most are about hunting with Jock, such as a hunt for a leopard and an old crocodile. Other stories are about people and the animals that Jock and the narrator face, such as when the duo gets lost in the bush, a fight with a captive baboon, a run from a wildfire, and an encounter with some wild dogs. After many years and many more adventures, Jock becomes unable to hunt and must retire.

An autobiography written secretly while Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years on Robben Island by South Africa's apartheid regime. Among the book's interesting revelations is Mandela's ambivalence toward his lifetime of devotion to public works. It cost him two marriages and kept him distant from a family life he might otherwise have cherished. Also disclosing a strong and generous spirit that refused to be broken under the most trying circumstances--a spirit in which just about everybody can find something to admire.

Like many white South Africans of his generation, Rian Malan fled his country to dodge the draft. He felt incredibly guilty for this act, but would have felt equally guilty for not doing it: "I ran because I wouldn't carry a gun for apartheid, and because I wouldn't carry a gun against it." Malan, the product of a well-known Afrikaner family, returned to South Africa to write the book which explores the literal and figurative brutalities of apartheid. Death is a constant presence on the pages, and the narrative is driven by Malan's criminal reportage.

An exploration of the different faces of power, one setting is a rural South African community during the closing years of apartheid; the other, years later in the exclusive art school of a womanizing painter.

A comprehensive study of the whole of South African history from pre-colonial times to 1999 covering major topics in some depth, with special focus on the dramatic changes in the country since 1990. It includes an important chapter on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and information on the recent South African elections.

Adventurers, scoundrels and missionaries ~ the best and worst of two continents carve an empire out of the vast wilderness that is to become South Africa. For hundreds of years, their rivalries and passions spill across the land. From the first Afrikaners to the powerful Zulu nation, and the missionaries who lived with both--all of them will influence and take part in the wars and politics that will change a nation forever.

A wonderful collection; heartwarming, sweet, and simply written books, The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith, are a delight. Everyday situations and settings in this dry hot town in southern Africa come to life and love. The crimes investigated are more often domestic problems, seldom with any violence or gore. Each book in the series has some continuing characters, and some new ones.

It is meaningful story about South Africa's racial tension in the 1940s and '50’s. The main character(Peekay, details his rich and exciting life, from his early life struggles with prejudice, through his terrific boxing career and beyond. The heart of the book relates to this prejudice that is forced on him. His response is to make friends with black Africans, almost unheard of for a white person at the time.

A work strongly influenced by nineteenth-century British traditions, filled with extended philosophical discussions, characters reminiscent of Charles Dickens, and an almost complete silence on the issue of race relations. But for all its Victorian attributes, the novel is a landmark in many ways. First is the setting in the rural South African landscape which Olive Schreiner evokes in all its bleakness and beauty, a fitting backdrop for the spiritual and philosophical development of Lyndall and Waldo, two soul mates who unceasingly search for truth throughout their lives. Their quest is frustrated - in Lyndall's case by gender restrictions and for Waldo by social position. The novel is also significant for Lyndall's character. Her forthright feminism, her refusal to alter her principles and her determination not to marry her lover despite her pregnancy make her a noteworthy female character in nineteenth century literature.

Vivid and accurate, filled with colorful characters, dramatic battles this unsurpassed history details the 60- year existence of the world’s mightiest African empire from 1787-1828 through its inevitable collisions with white expansionism to its dissolution under Getshwayo in the Zulu war of 1879.