Star Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5 Oil on Water Helon Habila Penguin Books, September 2011 Online Price: R206 Helon Habila takes you on a chase through an underworld of investigative journalism in a war-locked country, and his pace is impeccable. Two journalists are recruited to find the kidnapped wife of a British oil engineer. There’s […]
Tag Archives | Nondumiso Tshabangu
Star Rating: ★★★☆☆ 3/5 Freshwater Akwaeke Emezi Faber & Faber, March 2018 Online Price: R244 A strange debut novel, Freshwater explores the surreal experience of having a fractured self. It centres around a young Nigerian woman, Ada, who develops separate selves as a result of being born “with one foot on the other […]
Star Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5 The Terrible Yrsa Daley-Ward Penguin, April 2018 Online Price: R198 Poet, model and actor Yrsa Daley-Ward, best known for her debut poetry collection, Bone, and her spoken-word performances, has written a heartbreaking memoir in The Terrible, where she talks readers through a tale of a dark-skinned girl growing up […]
Star Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5 The Ones with Purpose Nozizwe Cynthia Jele Kwela Books, April 2018 Online Price: R244 The writing in this heartbreaking novel is nothing short of impeccable. Nozizwe Cynthia Jele, author of Happiness is a Four-Letter Word, awards us with her second offering – it is as if we didn’t wait […]
Star Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5 Hope Is Our Only Wing Rutendo Tavengerwei Hot Key Books, May 2018 Available 3 May A brilliant debut full of Zimbabwe’s golden sunsets. Shamiso is a fifteen year old girl forced by the death of her political journalist father to move back to Zimbabwe from London, this is just […]
Star Rating: ★★★★★ 5/5 What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky Lesley Nneka Arimah Riverhead Books, April 2017 Online Price: R380 Lesley Nneka Arimah’s debut is a vibrant collection of 12 compelling stories set in the US and Nigeria. From fantastical myths to a post-apocalyptic world, all the shorts are […]
Star Rating: ★★★☆☆ 3/5 Colour Me Yellow Thuli Nhlapo Kwela Books, September 2017 Online Price: R246 Reading Colour Me Yellow, I felt like an adult watching helplessly over a child’s unfolding plight. A relentlessly heart-breaking story of rejection – first by Thuli’s own mother, then by society, because she is different – this […]
Star Rating: ★★★☆☆ 3/5 A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars Yaba Badoe Head of Zeus, September 2017 Online Price: R216 If book covers are anything to go by—they shouldn’t be, but they are—this one draws you in immediately. It is a beauty, and tells you straight away that A Jigsaw of Fire and […]
Star Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5 When Rain Clouds Gather Bessie Head Little Brown, August 2010 (originally published 1968) Online Price: R180 Bessie Head is one of southern Africa’s hidden gems. Like most people I was introduced to her because her books were part of my school’s syllabus – and since then I have long […]
Star Rating: ★★★★☆ 4/5 Purple Hibiscus Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Harper Collins, January 2005 Online Price: R200 When a house is on fire, you run out before the roof collapses on your head. – Aunty Ifeoma Purple Hibiscus is a story told in the first person by Kambili Achike, a 15-year-old girl who is […]