South Africa Books

A QUILT OF DREAMS is set in South Africa during the final days of apartheid and succeeds in bringing the nation's political and social concerns to light in vivid color. Here two very different strangers find their lives entwined by the events shaking their nation: one an alcoholic white man, the other the young daughter of a black activist. Violence and change permeates their lives and affects their dreams, and while it seems unlikely their very different pasts and perspectives - and griefs -will prompt an encounter much less healing, it's the sweeping changes affecting their country which will lead them to each other and some surprising revelations. A QUILT OF DREAMS is a passionate novel of change and a top pick for public libraries seeking something compellingly different.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Zolani Mkiva is a practitioner of the oral tradition of South Africa called "praise poet" (imbongi) -- the oldest literary tradition in the nation. Railway Poetry is a splendid little volume that showcases both his talent and this remarkable oral tradition. 'Tis Hard To Bear: 'Tis hard to bear unmerited reproof/To live a life misjudged, misunderstood;/To see our once warm friends now stand aloof,/More credulous of whisper'd ill than good./'Tis hard when fate environs us with wrong,/And slander spreads, untouche'd by sense of truth;/And those who blame us know but half the truth./This we must bear, dissembling with the fear/That holds the soul subdued in patient thrall;/And trusting Time to make the darkness clear,/We'll dream of sunshine though the shadows fall/The Light must shine at last! Be of good cheer,/Our wrongs shall righted be, for God is over all.

I bought this book in South Africa more or less for the pretty pictures, but it has become my favorite and most used cookbook. As most cookbooks are, this cookbook is broken into sections for different parts of the meal: Soups and Salads, Side dishes, Poultry, Fish, Meat, Sambals and Preserves, Breads and homebakes. It also includes a section on making your own spice mixtures (like garam masala and roasted masala) and basic condiments (like mayonnaise). Favorite recipes among my friends and family include the Cape Brandy Pudding and Chicken biryani. In between each section are descriptions of the different regions of South Africa, replete with crisp and glittering photographs of flora, fauna, and scenery. Rainbow Cuisine it ultimately true to its name: it has a wide variety of recipes, reflecting the wide variety of cultures of South Africa, from Cape Malay to English and from Afrikaner to Ndebele. Although some of the dishes are pretty much impossible to make in the US (Roast loin of kudu, for example), those dishes are in the minority and, other than meats, it uses ingredients that are widely available (though some translation might need to be involved: like naartje = tangerine and sodium bicarbonate = baking soda). The only semi-inconvenient issue the book has is that all of the measurements in the recipes are given in metric units and temperatures are given in Celsius. There is a very useful conversion table in the back of the book, and if you're less forgetful than I am, you should have no problem, but I inevitably forget to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit and then wonder why it takes so long for everything to cook. That said, I love this book. It's perfect as a gift - I take any excuse to buy it for my friends and family (birthdays, holidays, or just because I found it on sale), and everyone who uses it loves it.

This is really useful for historiography for South Africa. Split into lectures and themes, it is good starting place for information for an essay. The only problem though, is that it is a bit out of date these days.

Interesting clips from writers who visited South Africa through time (1860 to 1997). Gives a good feel for what it was like then and now. Includes a Mark Twain entry from his diary. Great insight to the area.

What can i say? With such a long title, what can you expect? This book is great(at least i think it's a book). Buy it today!

The ubject of the slave trade has been written about before but this bookcovers the more interesting topic of the Protuguese trade in the 15th-18th century, and particularly its affects on Africans and the relationship between the church and the slaves, as well as 'others'. This book is scholarly and perhaps slightly dry, but not startinly so, in fact it is also readable and interesting, refreshing and original.

Surely this book adds scholarship to the period, espcially illuminating the relationship between slaves, brazilian society and the church in both Brazil and Portugal. Of particular interest is the work regarding the inqusitions attempts to snuff out tribal religons that remained among slaves brought to the new world.

Seth J. Frantzman

To not be accepted by one's own family - because you are of a darker complexion than they are - a truly terrifying thought for most Americans, but for South Africans, it's a sad truth. "Remittance Man" follows Bertie King, shunned by his family, as he tries to deal with life under a national government which makes American racism look like nothing. It's a story, that although fiction, is sadly remnant of many South Africans' true stories. "Remittance Man" is deftly written and highly recommended to literary fiction shelves everywhere.

For such a serious and possibly-dry subject, this is an interesting book, and it's full of fascinating information. It opened my eyes to how differently these seven countries (and probably every country) handle reproductive rights and practices, based on their unique social evolutions. One of the surprising things is how backward the United States is in most of these areas. The most progressive is Denmark where 80-some percent of all teens use birth control the first time they have sex! What an improved society we would have if we could get to that place. Easy to read!

This book covers South Africa's return to international cricket after 21 years of isolation. Colin Bryden follows the team through it's ground-breaking tour of India, their jubilation and exasperation in the World Cup, and their harsh learning experience in the Caribbean. It is well written, and will captivate the reader to share in the agony and ecstacy shared by those cricketers during this time