The African Small Publishers Catalogue is a comprehensive reference book that showcases independent publishers across Africa, celebrating their contributions while making their work more visible and accessible. Tool for librarians, scholars, publishers, booksellers and others.

After experiencing sight loss, artist Joanne Bloch explores the complex realities of visual impairment in South Africa through her own story and those of twenty others. Unseen reveals both daily challenges and remarkable resilience, offering intimate portraits of individuals who navigate a sighted world with courage, humor, and unwavering determination.

Horses and Oranges navigates the complexities and celebrate the triumphs of contemporary womanhood. Kirsten Garbini tracks both unusual and ordinary moments, offering keen observations on love, identity, and the everyday magic of existence. It is a treasure trove of quotable lines, alternately hilarious, biting, and poignant, all filled with a creative zest for life.

IMPRINT AFRICA is a collection of interviews that chronicles the work of a new network of female intellectuals and activists who have transformed African publishing across the twenty-first century. The rise of woman-led literary initiatives across the last two decades – from Blackbird Books in South Africa to Ake Arts and Book Festival in Nigeria – has led to major literary-publishing shifts.

The African Small Publishers Catalogue is a comprehensive reference book that showcases independent publishers across Africa, celebrating their contributions while making their work more visible and accessible. Tool for librarians, scholars, publishers, booksellers and others.

A taut and unsparing novel about a community plagued by violence, drugs, corruption, and prejudice—but where love and justice prevail. (Translated into English from the original Kaaps).

All available ebooks are R150. Email info@modjajibooks to say which ones you want, once you have paid.

The River People is a revelation of poetry, art (sculptures and beadworks), songs, interactive teachings, quotations, counsel, stories and reflections. A work that combines memoir and testimony with recent questions and learnings. The book is a gift of an uncompromising creative spirit, determined to be faithful to the last to the sacred sovereignty of her visions, dreams and experiences.

When Jerry, a charismatic stranger, arrives on the farm where Stella lives, her father stays sober, and her mother begins to laugh again – but the man with the silver cross has not come to save them.

Available for pre-order. Forthcoming in July.

Following the threads that radiate out from his personal experience of violence, Du Toit traces the events and the decisions that brought him to that fateful confrontation. He is forced to confront his place and complicity in a country still traumatised by racial violence – and to ask/explore what is required by the work of healing and repair.

Tightly written, witty, upbeat short stories about people making new beginnings after significant losses (the death of their partners, home invasions, etc) set in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg.

A moving account of growing up and coming of age in mid-twentieth century South Africa. The book is full of insight and humour, a tenderness and love for her family and country shines through the pages.

The Work of Repair is an ethnographic examination of the intimate relationships between laborers in the timber plantations of postapartheid South Africa, in the wake of the HIV crisis and the contentious politics of nutrition. It explores how capacity is augmented as the wounds of history are embodied and modulated.

Published under licence from Fordham University Press. Forthcoming in February 2024

Meet Asma, the only child of the Patels. Growing up in the cloistered confines of an Indian Township in the 60s, hers is a nearly idyllic childhood. When 1976 arrives and the country goes up in flames, Asma finds herself caught between the Fires of Resistance and the duties she is bound to as the daughter of an Indian household.

Forthcoming in February 2024.

The poems in Messenger, written late in life reveal a meditative appreciation of the natural world on her doorstep and a profound questioning of previously held beliefs.

Poems of displacement, interactions in a variety of social landscapes, in temporary homes that offer respite and change, and that find solace in the natural world.

Forthcoming January 2023

In ten superbly crafted stories, we are taken into the private, individual worlds of a varied cast of characters and exposed to the complicated weave of emotions so often concealed under the veneer of everyday lives.

Ceremony and celebration are integral to human life.

Ribbons of Love is inspired by the need of many couples to celebrate their marriage more personally than the traditional forms of marriage allow. The blessings give voice and expression to the core aspects of marriage common to all people whatever their nationality, creed, race or sexual orientation. The blessings emphasise the sacred element of their covenantal bond. These are conveyed largely by metaphors drawn from nature and cover those qualities and behaviours that make for an enduring marriage.

Stray includes journalism, fiction, humour, poetry and memoir. It’s a blend of classic works and fresh new material written especially for this cause. The authors have generously contributed or written stories and other works for free to help raise funds for TEARS Animal Rescue.

In this posthumously published collection of poems, Michael Wessels’ passionate love for and knowledge of the natural world shines through.

Due out in June 2023

Keith Gottschalk is one of very few English language poets after Walt Whitman to compose poems celebrating engineers, inventions, and scientists. With wit and paradox, these poems explore our solar system and celebrate astronomers and spaceflight.

The poems in this collection offer up a precise honouring of the wild, with a deeply felt sense of attachment to a planet in peril.

In this novel about being seen and what is not seen, the previously hidden is revealed when the unexpected happens. In the unusually wet winter of 2010, two teenage girls set off to a party on a farm across a river, and disappear without a trace.

While the world is happier with its oldies locked away during the pandemic, the lovable and maverick elders of Hazyview Mansions, galvanised by Maggie and her friends, have their own ideas. Romance, old loves; individual, local and global issues drive the story of this consequential movement with sustained and gentle humour. 

A woman reluctantly takes on the responsibility of putting her eccentric rebellious mother into a retirement home and managing her care. She has her own daughter to raise and nurture, a marriage and a business to hold together, and her own psychological troubles due in good part to how she was mothered.

my mother, my madness is her account of her mother’s last ten years, at once funny, harrowing, mundane, chaotic, and full of insight. It is a rich and moving story that unfolds through its characters like a novel.

A bold and wild ride through two thousand years of myth and mayhem in an outrageous serio-comic work of literary fiction. Readers are invited to accompany Wanda, Lynn Joffe’s outrageous, boundaries-pushing heroine, on a soul-boggling journey that crisscrosses ancient and modern worlds and slips in and out of many centuries. As a guide, Wanda’s delightfully irreverent voice, alternately sardonic and tender, provides a running commentary that has us breathlessly trying to keep up.

Set over two thousand years and written in the throes of the #metoo era, Wanda B. Lazarus adds her unique voice to the literary mix. Part Odyssey, part Groundhog Day, Wanda’s journeys give us an alternative view of history retold as her-story. And she’s holding nothing back. Get set for a wild ride.



 

SYNOPSIS

The Gospel According to Wanda B. Lazarus

What if ... the Wandering Jew ... was a woman? And not just any woman; a sexually charged, foul-mouthed, free-wheeling muso, who strides through the ages at the behest of the muses of antiquity, in her quest to become the tenth muse.

 

Accidentally cursed with immortality, Wanda has no choice but to keep moving. Each new locale of her serial reincarnations is wittily and vividly rendered. And Wanda gets around – from Jerusalem in the time of Jesus (who is actually Wanda’s buddy Yossi) to Palmyra, Langue D’Oc to Londinium, New York to Norway – and many places in between. In each she manages to insinuate herself into events that may or may not change the course of history.

 

During her many journeys around the globe Wanda takes time out to return several times to an in-between world called the Pleroma, where she chills with the diffident Nine Muses of Antiquity, hoping against hope that they will allow her to become the Tenth Muse if she fulfills the increasingly impossible tasks they set her to prove her musical worth.

 

Wanda speaks to us in a voice spiced with Yiddishisms, mostly about sex, adventure and music, and it is the force of her character that holds the novel together across the dizzying array of historical settings she traverses. Despite the emphasis on laughter and satire of a particularly impudent variety, the inspiration behind this novel is a serious one: to re-imagine the ancient mythological figure of the Wandering Jew as a female, or Picara, and in exploring her life as an eternal wanderer, also revision Jewish history and mythology from her perspective.

 

The fates of the three women in this novel span––and inevitably intertwine with––the history of Cameroon, from pre-colonial and colonial times through the independence movements to the contemporary terror of Boko Haram.

In this manifesto, Susan Hawthorne provides a scathing critique of the global publishing industry set against a visionary proposal for organic publishing. She looks at free speech and fair speech, the environmental costs of mainstream publishing, and the promises and challenges of the move to digital.

Forthcoming - in January 2023.

A highly effective step-by-step practical approach to script and screenwriting.

A generous portrait of an artist at the height of her powers of perception. In these poems, sketches and song lyrics, crafted over a lifetime, we come to share in the adventure of stepping out of what Fairhead calls the “house of orthodoxy.”

In the village where Chinongwa lives, her family, displaced from their lands, are very poor. One desperate solution to hunger is to trade young daughters into marriage.

Caught between the beloved traditions of India and life in a quickly modernising South Africa, between family roots in Natal and a prosperous present in the Transvaal; between the madness of apartheid and the pull of her own desires, Smita struggles to find her feet in a world beset by contradictions.

Plan B: How South Africans can invest in the UK property market is a practical, step-by-step guide. It is full of useful advice on how to get started, from leveraging bank finance to finding investment-grade properties from distance.

The Girl Who Chased Otters is a sensitive tale of friendship, love and acceptance set in the southern suburbs of Cape Town.

A keen observer of human behaviour, Nathan has never cared about fitting in, but when Olivia asks for his help becoming popular, he can’t refuse. But as she is swept into a world of gossip and bullying, they must both question what they really want. A story about friendship and falling in love.

Content Warning: rape, self-harm/suicide attempt.

The much-anticipated sequel to the turtle dove told me (Modjaji Books, 2013), which won a SALA Award in 2014, stem of the moon is the second volume in a trilogy that spans the years 1990 – 2010.

In this collection, Sliepen paints impressions of a small town, Clarens in the Free State, as well as glimpses of life in the Netherlands and Bali. The reader shares the intimate experience of the birth of her first child and the poems take us on a profound journey through Namibia.  Sliepen’s latest collection is a love song to a child, a lover, a mother, and the quiet strength of the moon that connects us all.

The poems in ‘predicaments’ explore women’s responses to the constraints and consequences of choices they have made. Their responses are not much changed through the millennia of myth, history and into contemporary times. The poet reflects on significant moments in the lives of women such as Helen of Troy, Delilah and Joan of Arc, and the predicaments they are faced with in a man’s world.

Eighty-five-year-old Alma tracks a stallion through the wild bush. A young woman leaves her corporate job to start a wine farm as her marriage stales. A mother leaves her war-torn home to seek safety for herself and her daughter and a girl begs for survival.

In a series of ten mesmerising stories, Cranswick pulls aside the covers to let us in on the lives and inner lives of women thrown out of their comfort zone. With chilling clarity and a haunting lyricism, Cranswick slows down time, zooms in close, and refuses to look away.

Lynn Joffe

The Gospel According to Wanda. B. Lazarus is just what the world needs now. A fizzing, fulsome and fiercely funny heroine, and a novel charged with music, energy, bounce, juice and joy.’ – Stephen Fry

 

Skye is looking for normal. She grew up different and it rankles. Home isn’t normal; her mom isn’t normal. Her brother, beloved as he is, isn’t quite normal, either. Her marriage was kind of normal (Cam is a wealthy, handsome man who’s nice enough) and now it’s a dumpster fire. And look at South Africa—entirely NOT normal.

Fiona Snyckers

“We know what’s best for our children.”

Burnt out after years as a professional dancer, Ella Burchell moves to a small town on the KwaZulu Natal north coast hoping to rebuild her life. Things look up when she gets a job teaching dance to children at a for-profit private school.

But Ella hasn’t reckoned with the cabal of private-school mums who run the Pines Academy as their own personal fiefdom. Circling into cliques at the school gates every morning, the mums are a force to be reckoned with.

Christine Coates

The Summer We Didn’t Die is Christine Coates’ third poetry collection. It is an assured, tender collection that offers the reader a way to think about the mysteries at the heart of what it means to be human, in this place and time.

Lindiwe Nkutha

In her debut collection of short stories, Lindiwe Nkutha takes us through the minds of people you may overlook on an ordinary day. Nkutha’s words weave in and around the weights we drag behind us from one place to another, with a sensitivity and wit required for such vulnerabilities and intimate moments.

Shanice Ndlovu

The stories in The Pride of Noonlay are crackling, lyrical, and controlled, and the worlds Ndlovu conjures are fascinating and vivid.

Jeannie McKeown

Fall Awake is a study in contrasts, exploring belonging and unbelonging; tracking the coming to terms with a fluid sexuality, and examining how relationships work or don’t work.

Barbara Adair

A man is travelling to Africa from Europe. And yet it is also about waiting - waiting for Africa.

Various authors

Compiled by Marike Beyers

An anthology of poems by poets previously published by Modjaji Books. A celebration of 15 years of poetry by southern African women.

Crystal Warren

In a series of tender, bite-sized poems on being a writer, loneliness, faith, patriarchy, climate change, grief, and more, Crystal Warren offers up an ode to the every day.

Various authors

Compiled by Arja Salafranca

An anthology of selected short stories, to celebrate 12 years of publishing short stories. All of the stories were previously published by Modjaji Books.

Joan Metelerkamp

In Making Way, Metelerkamp demonstrates once again her unrivaled command of a poetry of movement and process.

Innie shadows wroeg met die duiwels van ’n gemeenskap wat gebuk gaan onder die maatskaplike euwels van dwelms, onverdraagsaamheid en homofobie, en waar paaie te midde van wrede brutaliteit kruis. Baanbrekersfiksie waarin die onteiendes uiteindelik hul eie stories vertel.

Barbara Adair

IN TANGIER WE KILLED THE BLUE PARROT is a novel set in Morocco in the 1940s and weaves a story around the well-known writers, Paul and Jane Bowles. Paul was a composer and author of The Sheltering Sky, and Jane was the author of Two Serious Ladies.

Nedine Moonsamy

Seeking adventure during the school holidays, five teenagers from the Indian suburb of Lenasia accidentally witness a violent crime that has a lasting impact on their lives.

Tariro Ndoro

An honest exploration of dislocation and (un)belonging in its forms: exile from language, exile from country, and exile from sanity.

Jo-Ann Bekker

The 39 interlinked stories in Asleep Awake Asleep can be read as a hand-drawn narrative map, charting the course of a country’s turbulent history.

Hester van der Walt

Two women, one from the Netherlands and the other one from the Free State Gold Fields, meet in a hospital hall in Bloemfontein. Fifty years later Hester tells the story of how life formed them as nurses, community workers, bakers, artists and life partners.

Jennie Reznek

Three incarnations of women: a mother, a daughter and an old crone. A haunting of past, present and future selves. A modern-day, South African, poetic re-telling of the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone

Fiona Snyckers

Who was Jim Grey and how did he die? Trinity Luhabe returns to school for the second term of Grade Ten determined to solve this mystery. Trinity is back in her most engaging story yet as author Fiona Snyckers tackles a sensitive subject.

Karin Cronje

A powerful memoir that is searingly honest, heart-achingly funny and deeply sad. There goes English Teacher spans three years of adventures and misadventures as an English teacher in a small Korean village and later at a university. This is an unusually honest memoir with strong reflective passages on, amongst other themes, the nature of identity and the loss of it; sexuality; belief; ageing; displacement; and nationhood.

An invaluable reference book for publishers or anyone interested or in any way involved in the African book/publishing/literary scene, or writers looking for a publisher. Lists a wide range of small and independent publishers in countries from around Africa. Also contains an article from Impepho Press on why they started, one from Sooo Many Stories on the lessons of publishing, and more.

Trifonia Melibea Obobo

Translated by Lawrence Schimel

The first novel by an Equatorial Guinean woman to be translated into English, La Bastarda is the story of the orphaned teen Okomo, who lives under the watchful eye of her grandmother and dreams of finding her father.

Annette Snyckers’ poems are as subtle and intimately telling as the differences between the three languages in which she writes and battles to live and dream. These verses touch and tug at one another like the Afrikaans of her childhood, the German of her husband and the South African English of her homeland. They agree to differ in all sorts of nuanced ways.

Kleur kom nooit alleen nie [Colour never comes alone], wrote Antjie Krog. Annette Snyckers powerfully reminds us that neither do languages, landscapes, countries, continents and their people.

 Kerry Hammerton

In poems that memorialise and celebrate both the extraordinary and every day with unnerving clarity, Kerry Hammerton traverses the landscapes of loss and living, recalling the weight of past loves, new life and imminent death.

Karin Schimke

In her second volume of poetry, poet Karin Schimke explores the idea of home, contemplating notions of belonging and un-belonging and the various places and ways in which one is “at home”.

New Poems

Robin Winckel-Mellish

In this second collection Messages from the Bees Robin Winckel-Mellish shows the same qualities as A Lioness at my Heels, but this time runs deeper, darker and stronger.

Phillippa Yaa De Villiers

In this, her third collection of poetry, Phillippa Yaa De Villiers invokes images of past and present with hypnotic clarity, summoning the heart and heat of memory – painful and happy alike  – with the distinct musicality and visceral punch she is known for.

Author: Ambre Nicolson

Illustrator: Jaxon Hsu

This is no ordinary A to Z. With each letter of the alphabet this book honours the contribution of women to South Africa’s past, present and future. Using short, easy to read biographies and illustrations that are as bright and bold as the women they depict, this book shares the life stories of 26 South African rebels, artists, troublemakers, athletes, dancing queens and freedom fighters.

Katleho Kano Shoro

Serurubele means ‘butterfly’ in Sesotho. It is the art of metamorphosis, a mind in flight and the beat of poetic expression.

I offer you my perspectives,
my many mothers’ teachings.
I present both hopelessness and moments that excite,
the taxi mgosi that makes me write.

Hester van der Walt

In hierdie memorie vertel sy van die sleutel oomblikke in haar lewe wat haar daartoe gedryf het om kulturele en etniese grense oor te steek om sodoende uit te vind wie sy werklik is. Haar besluite neem haar vanaf die Vrystaat na Distrik Ses en Venda, na Nederland en die Verenigde Koninkryk, na Heideveld en Hanover Park en uiteindelik na McGregor.

Haar nederige storie vertel van die geestelike isolasie van alle “vlugtelinge” wat die onversoenbare waardes van hulle “tuiste” (hetsy fisies of ideologies) verlaat en nuwe maniere moet vind om ‘n lewe te skep. Dit vertel ook van die wonder om ‘n metgesel langs die pad te vind.

Dawn Garisch

Carol Trehorne’s only child, Max, is in ICU with severe burns. Max, a performance artist, has set himself alight. He recovers but it becomes clear that he is planning further performances that will put him at risk of serious injury or death. Carol, a single parent and a GP in a busy suburban practice, is worried that her son is not the genius his friends think he is, but might be on drugs or going psychotic.

Makhosazana Xaba

This edition is a re-release of Xaba’s first poetry collection (first published in 2005) due to demand from readers and academics. A powerful, ground breaking work that placed Xaba firmly as an important voice in the SA literary scene.

Tracey Farren

New edition of the novel that was first published as Whiplash in 2008.
Whiplash was published ahead of its time, it was ground breaking and initially was received with reservation. However nine years later the levels of sexual violence in South Africa and in the world continue to be an epidemic. Books like this resist that epidemic, and are an opportunity for society to examine itself and and to change for the better.

Colleen Crawford Cousins

A striking true voice, which is also warm, wise, rich, full of humour and sadness, and some quirkiness.

Marike Beyers

Lonely lovely lyric, these poems tell a uniquely South African story in a uniquely South African voice.

Shirmoney Rhode

Nomme 20 Delphi Straat (of Delphi Straat 20) is ʼn versameling van beide Kaaps-en Standaard Afrikaanse gedigte wat aanvanklik as performance poetry vorm aangeneem het.

Philippa Kabali-Kagwa

Soul-warming memoir tells of a life enriched by song, literature, food and spirituality at the heart of a loving family who move from Uganda to Addis Ababa to Cape Town.

Ishara Maharaj


“I wish I had a sister who loved me so fiercely.”

Surya and Anjani are twins, but they could not be more different. Anjani is calm, devout and responsible, while Surya just wants to party the days away.

Isobel Dixon

In her fourth collection, Isobel Dixon takes readers on a journey to far-flung and sometimes dark places. From Robben Island to Hiroshima, Egypt to Edinburgh, the West Bank and beyond, these poems are forays of discovery and resistance, of arrival and loss.

Charlotte Otter

Karkloof Blue is the sequel to critically acclaimed Balthasar’s Gift.

Greenwashing, corporate intransigence and bloody secrets.
Maggie Cloete’s back.

Michelle Hattingh

That morning, Michelle presented her Psychology honours thesis on men's perceptions of rape. She started her presentation like this, “A woman born in South Africa has a greater chance of being raped than learning how to read …”

Ameera Patel

Outside the Lines is both a thriller and a family drama.

Anne Woodborne

The Cry of the Hangkaka is the story of young Karin  and her mother Irene. Shamed by a divorce, Irene seeks to flee with her daughter from post WWII South Africa.

Reference book, catalogue. Lists a wide range of small and independent publishers in the following African countries: Algeria, Mauritius, Namibia, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, Senegal, Zimbabwe.

Fiona Snyckers

Now Following You is a clever, chilling and compelling read, which skilfully weaves relevant issues – most notably, the power social media gives to stalkers and others who intend harm -- into a captivating story with believable characters.

Sandra Hill

Whether drawn from the distance of history or located in contemporary Cape Town, these eight stories create a tender and luminous account of just how extraordinary the everyday life of women can be.

Elisa Galgut

These deeply felt poems are at once plain-speaking and alive with complexity; Galgut’s elegant response to both pain and loveliness is inspiring.

Eliza Kentridge

Against the dramatic background of her home country’s history, her focus is quieted, small and interior.

Wendy Woodward

At once poignant and luminous. These intimate poems (about families, journeys, and the burial of dogs) have a certain clarity that reaches into the heart.  - Julia Martin

Personal Narratives of Marriage and Beyond

Zaheera Jina and Hasina Asvat

A collection of life stories exploring issues of marriage, love, loss, family life, culture, religious beliefs, suburban life, local and international politics, freedom and education among other important issues faced by professional and well-educated Muslim women who have not been held back by global stereotypes.

Arja Salafranca

Arja Salafranca’s new poetry collection offers portraits of people on trains in England, as well as recounting the experience of being a stranger in Spain, where she was born.

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Mellisa de Villiers

In her finely woven collection of stories – spanning South Africa, London and Singapore – De Villiers deftly probes the ambiguities of different kinds of love and empathy as she brings a variety of people closer together in unexpected ways.

Christine Coates

Homegrown looks backwards, at childhood, and delves into the pain and beauty of a time that has passed.

Tanvi Bush

“It is a monstrous bruise of a sky.  Thunder mutters and pounds the horizon sending vibrations through the slumbering city.”

This is modern Lusaka where the line between juju and religion is blurred, the arcane and the mundane muddle and nothing is what is seems.

Tiah Beautement

Ella Spinner stumbles through a single day after the tragedy. Set in Mossel Bay, it explores why – despite the grief, the struggles – there remains an urge to try.

Futhi Ntshingila

In her second novel, Futhi Ntshingila once again introduces us to a cast of strong women who have little, but are determined to shape their own destinies.

Joan Metelerkamp

As we have come to expect with Joan Metelerkamp’s work, these poems can be read individually or, more rewardingly, as a body, from cover to cover.

Charlotte Otter

Balthasar's Gift continues the tradition of pacy, hard-boiled South African crime fiction.
This title has already been published to critical acclaim in Germany.

Makhosazana Xaba

When Phil entered my bedroom, he was breathing heavily, carrying a parcel in old newspaper, folded  as neatly as only Phil could fold. It was the suit. I was shocked he had even remembered to bring it with him. But that was Phil. He thrived on detail.  From “Behind The Suit”

Kholofelo Maenetsha

The capriciousness of life and love in South Africa now, and the strength of a group of women friends in the face of a crisis.

Margaret Clough

“Margaret Clough’s poems are poignant and hilarious; an indispensable guide to being the last to leave.” Finuala Dowling

Thandi Sliepen

The Turtle Dove Told Me is the long awaited, debut collection of poetry from emerging South African poet and artist Thandi Sliepen.

Fiona Snyckers

South Africa’s favourite heroine is back!

“I told you to stay away from him, but you never listen, do you, Trinity?”

Toni Strasburg

Fractured Lives is a memoir of one woman’s experiences as a documentary filmmaker covering the wars in southern Africa during the 1980s and 1990s.

Hester van der Walt

Hester's Book of Bread is an honest and delicious, down to earth book that tells of Hester van der Walt’s passion for baking bread.

Colleen Higgs

A collection of short stories set in Yeoville from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s.

Robin Winckel-Mellish

The hemispheric pull between Europe and Africa and the restlessness that results from inhabiting both worlds is reflected in A Lioness at my Heels.

Haidee Kruger

This, her second collection, is sharp, intelligent, sensual poetry of love, loss, sexuality and creativity.

Ingrid Andersen

Meditations on love, loss, family and faith, the poems in Ingrid Andersen’s second collection gleam with humanity and insight.  Each poem in Piece Work is precisely crafted and builds a mosaic of an attentive life.

Michelle McGrane

McGrane demonstrates her obvious passion for the music of language. She plucks words from specialist lexical fields and unselfconsciously weaves them into the fabric of her own poetic voice.

Phillippa Yaa de Villiers

The Everyday Wife is poetry–to-go, a handy little book of practical poetry for any occasion.

Helen Moffett

Strange Fruit is a courageous debut with a remarkable range in theme and tone, from the nostalgic to the comedic and bawdy, from angry, melancholic to steadfast and comforting.

Sindiwe Magona

From the languid innocence of the poems about her village, to her shattering images of Africa at war, Magona leads you headlong into her fireside circle where archetypes flicker like shadows on a face that has seen, and been.

Funded by the Cape 300 Foundation

Azila Talit Reisenberger

Life in Translation is full of wry humour, longing, bitterness, sweetness, playfulness, and subversions of traditional meanings and texts – a delightful book that charms and surprises anew with each reading.

Megan Hall

Megan Hall's first collection of poems, Fourth Child, has the texture of a carefully wrought, hand-stitched garment.

Joan Metelerkamp

Like all of Metelerkamp’s work, these generous poems draw on the details of family and rural life, dreams, landscapes and journeys and weave together, with her distinctive energy and passion.

 

Karin Schimke

Masterful in its technique and heart-rending in its emotional range, this memorable collection tells the story of sexual passion, its devastating aftermath and the slow road home.

Sappho’s Daughters Out in Africa

Dr Alleyn Diesel

A collection of biographical writings by South African lesbian women. The women’s stories eloquently deal with the depth and complexity of lesbian experiences, and serve to contradict stereotyping.

Phumzile Simelane Kalumba

Jabulani Means Rejoice is a dictionary comprised of hundreds of African names in local South African languages, meticulously assembled and expounded upon for the curious reader. Names are listed in alphabetical order with gender indications, as well as information regarding their ethnographic origins and meanings.

Malika Ndlovu

This book breaks the silence around stillbirth, often seen as a non-event, something women are expected to “get over” as soon as possible. Invisible Earthquake is placed in the wider South African context by Sue Fawcus, who writes tenderly and expertly about stillbirth from the point of view of an obstetrician, and by Zubeida Bassadien and Muriel Johnstone, social workers who accompany women going through this shattering experience.

Hester van der Walt

Hester se Brood  is an honest and delicious, down to earth book that tells of Hester van der Walt’s passion for baking bread.

Tracey Farren

An unputdownable, gripping debut novel, a ‘Cinderella’ story about a Muizenberg (Cape Town) prostitute, Tess, who while being addicted to painkillers and selling her body on the street finds redemption in unexpected places.

Meg Vandermerwe

Ten stories. Ten voices. Ten diverse perspectives of what home has meant to South Africans during our country’s challenging history.

Reneilwe Malatji

The stories in this collection have an intimate feel, like conversations eavesdropped on.

Maren Bodenstein

An old man is woken up by the wailing of a prophetess. Sitting on the veranda and staring into the dry veld he is beset with images of snakes hiding in the cellar beneath him. His peace is further disturbed by visits from his angry daughter, Susanna. Memories of his childhood on a remote mission station in Venda come flooding in.

Colleen Higgs

Alternating between the most economical of free verse and the most elastic of prose-poetry, Higgs shows a dazzling facility with both mediums.

Margaret Clough

At Least the Duck Survived offers a series of lyrical observations about old age, retirement and approaching death; about Tai Chi classes, dogs, lesbian aunts, grandchildren, bicycles and symphony concerts.

Dawn Garisch

As both a medical doctor and a writer, Dawn Garisch has lived a split life for many years. Finally, Eloquent Body allows the two streams of her life to converge.

Rosemary Smith

Swimming with Cobras is a memoir about a journey to find a foothold in a foreign land grappling with its own identity, offering rare and important insight into a corner of South Africa’s past.