Star Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5 Thirteen Cents K. Sello Duiker Kwela Books, July 2013 Online Price: R236 In the novel Thirteen Cents Duiker paints a vivid and heart wrenching picture of how, in post-apartheid South Africa, overt and covert marginalization still prevail. Racism, tribalism, exploitation, classism, corruption, crime, violence, violation, starvation, and displacement, […]
Author Archive | Justine
Q1: Can you tell us a little about the book? A: [Nomsa Mwamuka]: This anthology documents the experiences of women who lived through a time of transition from colonialism to independence. The setting is largely Zimbabwe from the seventies – war years, to the eighties – the heydays of independence and of course till now. […]
Star Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5 Rumours Mongane Wally Serote Jacana Media, April 2013 Online Price: R226 Mongane Wally Serote’s Rumours explores a man’s journey to dig deep into himself in an effort to discover what it is that he already knows, but had somehow forgotten along the way. Serote uses South Africa’s post-apartheid […]
Star Rating: ★★★★★ 5/5 This Mournable Body Tsitsi Dangarembga Jacana Media, November 2018 Online Price: R246 This Mournable Body is the last of a trilogy that began with Nervous Conditions and was followed by The Book of Not. The reader should be privy to the contents of the first two books, especially […]
Star Rating: ★★★★★ 5/5 Intruders Mohale Mashigo Picador Africa, September 2018 Online Price: R166 If I didn’t know any different, I would say that Mohale Mashigo was one very sassy, savvy, sophisticated and stylish writer. Well I’m not wrong, she is indeed all of those things – but she’s also a sufferer. Anxiety […]
Star Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5 There Goes English Teacher Karin Cronje Modjaji Books, October 2018 Online Price: R289 Karin Cronje makes the decision to go to South Korea to teach English, in what seems like an almost unconsidered manner. We meet her at the beginning of this wonderful memoir, in her son’s bathroom with […]
Finally, we’ve come face to face with whatever 2019 holds for us. It was only yesterday, it seems, that we were saying the same thing at the end of 2017. The one thing that is certain is that this year has been so tumultuous that nothing any of the sages and wannabe sages gave us […]
Star Rating: ★★★☆☆ 3/5 Small Things Nthikeng Mohlele Jacana Media, May 2018 (new edition) Online Price: R206 Small Things: A novel about despair, love, and the elusive nature of inner happiness. This book starts off by introducing us to the anonymous narrator’s first unrequited love, Desiree. We get to experience the all-consuming love […]
It’s come and it’s gone. Of course, I’m referring to the illustrious Booker Prize, often described as the world’s most important literary prize in the English language. It’s changed a great deal in the last few years. A decision was taken to allow the Americans in and nothing’s been the same since. They wiped the […]
Every page a gift. Exclusive Books has made gifting easy for South Africans this year, with more than 100 titles to pick from in its annual festive catalogue – including Becoming, Michelle Obama’s personal account of her upbringing, her life in the White House and what it’s like to raise two daughters under the media’s […]