South Africa Books

Any book by Desmond Tutu is inspirational, and he always has an appealingly humorous style. Read this and "An African Prayer Book." And if you are intriqued by this great man, read "A TELLING TIME" by Glynnis Hayward, too. There is a character in this moving South African novel, Rev Mkize, who is a Zulu priest. I feel he is inspired by the famous Archbishop, whom he quotes respectfully.

Desmond Tutu is definately a man of God. His love, forgiveness and courage is set firmly in his belief of the Gospel. Through this book he clearly demonstrates the power that comes from a belief. The journals will inspire anybody.

The Rainbow People of God is a must-have anthology of Desmond Tutu's most motivating and inspiring letters, sermons and addresses between 1974 and 1994. John Allen (editor) includes some of Tutu's most memorable public addresses and skillfully weaves historical background information into the public addresses for the reader's benefit. This proves extremely helpful in painting an overall picture of the antiapartheid movement in South Africa. Anyone who has listened to Tutu speak understands that he often employs humor to illustrate the darkness and oppression caused by apartheid. Readers expecting such humor will enjoy complete satisfaction in this collection of Tutu's speeches. Through Tutu's voice, we learn how he successfully merged African and Christian philosophy to become one of the key players in defeating apartheid.

Not since the late James McClure's Kramer and Zondi novels has a crime writer taken readers so deeply into South Africa. Where McClure exposed the brutality and minutiae of the apartheid era, Richard Kunzmann sets his novels in the present - a present with deep roots in the past.

His second novel, "Salamander Cotton" opens with the murder of an old man, Bernard Klamm, who dies a more horrible death than anyone deserves. Or maybe no cruelty is too horrible for Klamm, who, Johannesburg Detective Jacob Tshabalala soon learns, grew rich on the blood of black asbestos miners, kept a cache of horrifying child pornography and may have killed his own daughter 39 years earlier for taking a black lover.

But this, too, is a picture soon blurred and shaded as Jacob realizes the answers lie in the past, in the isolated mining town of Leopold Ridge where Klamm made his money and his daughter disappeared. But the city's budget won't stretch to this. So resourceful Jacob arranges for his former partner Harry Mason (who retired after Kunzmann's debut "Bloody Harvests") to be hired by Klamm's estranged wife. She wants someone to investigate her daughter's disappearance and this is a job, Jacob is sure, which will help solve Klamm's murder.

The center of the book belongs to Harry as he pokes into forbidden places in the dangerous town, where thugs administer the law and ghosts roam the hills. Point of view shifts mostly between Harry and Jacob, with some views from secondary characters including a vicious cop and a frightened dying man, which flesh out the complex narrative.

Various subplots and a narrative that moves back and forth in time gives the novel added depth, but also requires a bit of attention on the part of the reader to keep things straight. Kunzmann makes it well worth the effort.

In Johannesburg Police Detective Inspector Jacob Tshabalala investigates the homicide of elderly former mining boss Bernard Klamm. The murder was extremely brutal and Jacob wonders if the violence ties back to the victim's extensive pornography collection. He also learns that the divorced Klamm was once married to a Henrietta Campbell and their daughter vanished without a trace three decades ago making the sleuth ponder if that is the key clue or just a coincidental red herring.

As the official investigation goes slowly, Henrietta hires private investigator Harry Mason based on Jacob's recommendation re his former partner, to dig deep especially in the Northern Cape where Klamm owned a remote farm. Mason checks into the three decade old disappearance of their daughter to see if the present killing is linked. He is unprepared for corporate cover-ups of asbestos mining effects on the workers and angry acrimonious people seeking vengeance to what has occurred to them due to avaricious irresponsibility.

This starts off as an exhilarating South African police procedural, but turns into an exciting private investigative tale that ties the 1960s with the 1990s. The whodunit is fast-paced and filled with twists and red herrings. The contrasts between the two eras are incredibly striking and enhance a strong murder mystery that like the first Tshabalala-Mason team-up (BLOODY HARVEST) will enthrall the audience with its insightful look at South Africa through the eyes of the two sleuths.

Harriet Klausner

Richard Kunzmann proves that "Bloody Harvests", his debut novel, was no fluke as he follows up with "Salamander Cotton", another gripping and grisly tale of crime and culture in South Africa that is as intelligent and stylishly-written as it is bloody and brutal. The author's smart and sophisticated style raises this far above the average blood and guts cop thriller, weaving murder and mayhem with racial tension and a culture that is uniquely South African. Kunzmann wastes no time getting the reader riveted in place, opening up with the graphically barbarously creative murder of Bernard Klamm, a retired ex-mining boss, in Johannesburg's affluent suburban home. Back on the case is Detective Inspector Jacob Tshabalala, as calm and understated as he is competent. But it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to find out that Klamm was a man with many enemies and few friends, a near monster of a man who, even despite his open outward callousness, was hiding deeper, more sordid secrets. Overwhelmed with the scope and implications of Klamm's murder, Tshabalala lures former partner Harry Mason, retired from the force after his wife's murder, back into action to help investigate, representing Klamm's estranged widow as a private detective.

From there, Tshabalala and the murder almost take a back seat, serving as mere backdrop for a complicated and engaging tale of the South Africa's asbestos mining industry (the title refers to the native American's name for the fibrous and heat resistant mineral). While Kunzmann succeeds in keeping the story racially balanced, avoiding the hand wringing melodrama and indignant outrage that can easily overwhelm the plot with difficult subject matter like this, the conditions to which the asbestos miners were subjected is nonetheless disturbing. Meanwhile, Mason's probes of the unsolved decades-old disappearance of Klamm's own daughter takes on a life of it's own, the locals convinced her vengeful spirit haunts young teenaged girls in the vicinity of Klamm's abandoned mines. And if that's not enough to keep you busy separating plot threads, throw in Klamm's callous widow and her oily live in architect lover to add to the mystery and intrigue.

In short, a broad and ambitious effort succeeds in building the suspense and mystery of a good old fashioned whodunit, while at the same time illuminating the "other" fascinating subculture "down-under." Kunzmann is a talented young author that deserves wider acclaim - "Salamander Cotton" is an unusual read and a great place to get to know him.

I was fascinated throughout. Sounds and looks "dry" when you see it on the shelf, but so full of juicy bits that make his life very real. You cheer for him when he manages to think his way around the obstacles that apartheid and his own nature put in his way and you are continually forced to confront the "What would I have done here?" question.



Yes, it is long. But when you are through you want to know still more. What has happened to the rest of the family since the book was published? What was the effect of those years of scrutiny on their "real" lives?



I stared at the pictures and studied the faces. I have been selectively pushing the book on all the thoughtful people I know. It wakes up your brain.

The daily life of Kas Maine over 90 odd years on the high veldt of South Africa says more about the history of that part of the world than all the history books and newspaper articles and military actions that could ever be recounted. I felt as though I myself had lived those same 90 years, breathed the dust, lost my crops, driven my livestock from farm to farm trying to find sharecropping work, put up and taken down my corregated metal shack, been hounded by bureaucrats, maintained my dignity and kept my family together against incredible odds. Although the place names and indigenous family names were difficult and their abundance presumed some familiarity with South Africa, I learned to visualize rather than pronounce them, and they became like one of Kas's stony fields in the story and I liked the "rough footing." A unique experience in book form.

I have been taking my time with this book, savouring it while I can. The rhythms of the prose and the world it describes are so seductive, that I have often found myself reading "just a few more pages" at 3AM despite having to get up for work the next day. If you wish to have a sense of what life in rural South Africa was like over the past century, I can't think of a better book (or any other book for that matter). Kas was an exceptionally gifted farmer, a traditional herbalist and healer, and a patriarch who struggled against the almost impossible odds of being a black man in South Africa. As the insanity of apartheid took hold, he and his family were forced to move from place to place, his dreams of agricultural success and land ownership gradually eroding. Yet the book also portrays the rich, multicultural environment of the Transvaal, the varied relationships between Blacks, Boers, Englishmen, Jews and Asians; the shift from a paternalistic but, in many ways more egalitarian society to a racist police state. Kas is a complex man: wise, cruel, patient, tender, pragmatic, apolitical, opportunist, and honourable. The portrayals of his relationships with his ever expanding family are as complex and engaging as one could wish from a fine novel. Van Onselen makes no apologies for him: he simply gives us the man and, above all his humanity. Perhaps his greatest achievement with this book is in bridging the gap between the Western reader and an illiterate African farmer, in underlining our human commonalities rather than our differences. Despite occasional passages that are a tad purple, the author's prose is clear and flowing. He manages to make the ebb and flow of the seasons with their triumphs, tragedies, and ignominies absolutely gripping. I never thought that I could be enthralled by descriptions of the complexities of plowing and harvesting, or the purchase of agricultural equipment, but I was. No it's not too long as the reviewer in the New York Times claimed. In fact one often wishes that one could know more about this extraordinary yet very ordinary man.

This is a fabulous novel, and I highly recommend it. It's very sensitively written and deals not only with current South African affairs but with the nature of families and blood ties. Such an interesting look at how the same members of one family can view things in such wildly different ways. Don't miss this one...

Well, the literary work was duly delivered by Amazon; and so I immediately (of course) set aside the "Steinbeck", "Hemingway" or some such other "classic" which was currently at hand.....in favor of this newly discovered contemporary writer......and, I have to say, this is one GOOD book......excellent!

The theme of the story was indeed disturbing and very troubling........but, I'm sure, not unrealistic in the context of what happens in today's South Africa. There was drama and tension, humor, excellent character portrayals, and just the right measure of sexual tension.....actually, let me take that back.....more, much more, on the voluptuous "Maria" would have been better.....!

Yes, a terrific book.

It was exciting to read this new book from the author. The characters and plot are well developed and the the writing has great empathy. She deals with very real issues, both in South Africa and California, and the interplay of family relationships is well described. I loved this book.

To do business in Africa, you must learn how Africans do business! Nowhere is this more important than in South Africa. Western investors, project managers, and business pioneers who wish to tap this dynamic frontier market must master African marketing methods. Distinguished African mercantile clans have honed and polished their methods and have formed notable, sophisticated, and successful trading companies across the continent for the past 2,000 years. Surely they have much to teach us. We must learn more about Africans in order to work more closely with them. We do not want Africans to perceive us as patronizing, arrogant, unwilling to learn African languages, contemptuous of local tradition, and hesitant to socialize with Africans.
Author Jeffrey A. Fadiman considers Africa as the West's commercial blind spot, believing we have ignored Africa since the 1960s and thus we have never learned how Africans do business. His book describes how we can use African methods to market African-style. He gives case studies of twenty-one African entrepreneurs. Fadiman knows Africa. He is a full professor of global marketing and an African area specialist with 32 years of experience in western, eastern, and southern Africa. He writes for the commercial pioneer who wants to venture beyond South Africa's small white market into the huge black market of more than 40 million with another 400 million beyond its borders. South Africa is the launch pad for the continent.
The book begins where you would-on the day you decide to launch a South African venture. Fadiman explains which tribes live where, what languages they speak, and where the markets are. Next he leads you through the history of South African racism, tribalism, and apartheid to illustrate precisely how each of these problems can still throw up major obstacles to Westerners who come for business.
After this rather sober beginning, the author takes you on a fascinating journey into the very heart of African methods, teaching you how to market yourself ("creating relationships") before even thinking of marketing your product. To do this well, you must learn how Africans greet, give gifts, do favors, show respect, and socialize as well as how their "big men" conduct negotiations, implement agreements, deal with labor, and so on. Then you must consider how to reach new market segments that have no U.S. parallels: dynamic African townships, extensive rural communities, and the large number of foreign Africans now pouring into South Africa.
Fadiman's tour then takes you into the "shadow" side of African marketing. You learn how to market your product through street hawkers and smugglers and even how to use the "tsotsi" (gangster) bands to implement your project. Fadiman is shockingly honest in analyzing South African crime. He tells it like it is and then suggests pragmatic and specific and effective methods to cope with it. In conclusion, Fadiman describes the sheer joy of working with a people whose optimism, exuberance, and love of life makes every day an adventure.

This book is more than just another lay-of-the-land, how-to for international business. Offering usable insights into the Sub-Saharan African culture, this text proved invaluable in establishing lasting African relationships... both personal and professional!

This book is scary! It tells you just what to do in order to penetrate South Africa's largest market of 40 million people, huge but chaotic. That's daunting to the commercially timid, but the text is geared to business pioneers who by nature defy discouragement. Fadiman tells us what's actually happening in the "Black" market, even the politically incorrect things that are often left out of books about controversial places. Then, having described how the local business games are actually played, he graphically delineates the rules so that an outsider can understand and participate. Essentially, he has created the ultimate business map.

His first chapter describes the national social geography, including both the visible and invisible sections of every major South African city. We all know of the visible, city names such as Johannesburg and Durban. The invisible sections are the African townships that surround each city -- which until recently were on no official maps. The townships contain millions of potential clients who were long dismissed as oppressed.

I skipped part of the long history lesson in Chapter 2, but as I read further I was glad it was there, up front. Here are some unforgettable concepts to consider. For instance, Fadiman argues that South Africa's whites did NOT create apartheid just to separate the races, but to reduce the millions of blacks to PULP (Permanent Underpaid Labor Pool), so as to maximize their private profit. Nowadays, these same millions can afford to buy the goods and services once reserved for whites. Fadiman's goal is to teach us how to sell to them.

One huge market that Fadiman explores is the African black market. It is untaxed, vast and completely unregulated. That suggests it should be chaotic as well. But he shows it to be highly structured, essentially efficient, and quite penetrable by Western marketers with open minds and imaginative methods. His examples of methods draw on either his own local experiences or on techniques that have worked in other emerging markets. Thus he describes a tactic used by James Thompson, the legendary silk king of Thailand, arguing that what works for Thai silk could do wonders for African wool.

The book pulls no punches in describing the risks of entry into the market. It's the old Wild West, but with carjackers instead of cowboys. Yet for every risk Fadiman offers practical personal action suggestions. I now know, for instance, that I have to see the bottom of the tires on the vehicle in front of me to have enough space to spin away from potential carjackers. Unusual stuff from a biz-school academic.

One structural criticism: The very last section should stand by itself. Although written in business prose, it's a short elegant poem, a tribute to the beauty and wonder of this unusual country by an author who does not ignore its problems. Readers of this book however will be mostly concerned with how to make money in a country with 60 million inhabitants who show another 400 million throughout Africa how to do things. Fadiman gives them the answers they need, but he also makes sure that they know, in colorful and often striking detail, why his answers will actually work.

This is one of the best books ever written on South Africa's military involvement in Southern Africa. It reveals more about the battles fought by South Africa's army, than most people are aware of. It has an indepth coverage from 1966 to 1989. Along with special sections on relevant military units like The South African "Recces" special forces, and 32 batalion both renown for their abilities in battle. There are also sections on the political decision making taking place, amongst various relevant parties. The numerous photos that can be seen throughout the book are very impressive in what they convey. In essence what it was like to be there. The South African Defence Force constantly fought against overwhelming odds, yet always rising to the task, and consistently coming out as winners.
I highly recommend this book for anymore who wants really know about, and understand the conflicts the SADF fought in, with courage and tenacity.

As the previous reviewer stated, this has got to be absolutely one of the best books written on South Africa's military involvement in South West Afrika (Namibia) and Angola. Most non-South Africans (and even many South African's these days) are unaware of just how intense and prolonged the fighting was, particularly in Angola against the Cubans (the South African's trashed them). This book tells the complete story, covering the period from 1966 to 1989. It covers the battles, the units (including special forces units like the Recces) as well as the politics.

The book is a large coffee-table format and going with the size, it includes an absolutely outstanding range of photos. I've got friends who were there, they've browsed through this book and said "ag nie manne, that was what it was like!" One of my friends was based in a military outpost photo'd in the book and he pointed out all the camp's features from the photo. It's that kind of book - if you get a chance to pick up a copy, grab it with both hands and your feet as well - it's worth it. And the author knows what he's talking about, he was there.

This is one of the best books ever written on South Africa's military involvement in Southern Africa. It reveals more about the battles fought by South Africa's army, than most people are aware of. It has an indepth coverage from 1966 to 1989. Along with special sections on relevant military units like The South African "Recces" special forces, and 32 batalion both renown for their abilities in battle. There are also sections on the political decision making taking place, amongst various relevant parties. The numerous photos that can be seen throughout the book are very impressive in what they convey. In essence what it was like to be there. The South African Defence Force constantly fought against overwhelming odds, yet always rising to the task, and consistently coming out as winners.
I highly recommend this book for anymore who wants really know about, and understand the conflicts the SADF fought in, with courage and tenacity....

It was a pleasure to read this creative work. I found I did not want to put it down, anxiously waiting to see how the author would tie all the loose ends together. - It was superbly done, and has me eagerly anticipating her next book.

It was a pleasure to read this creative piece of work. I found I did not want to put it down, anxiously waiting to see how the author would tie all the loose ends together. - It was superbly done, and has me anticipating her next book.

One of two new beautifully written, fascinating books by Marie Warder - author of "The Bronze Killer". One cannot but feel sympathy for the young Marguerite caught in the web of her marriage, and we are drawn from page to page in the hope that all will be well in the end. It is always so interesting to read about places you have visited and to learn the early history of the area. I was in Cape town, South Africa in the early 90's so I have been to the top of Table Mountain and have sipped the wine in the Stellenbosch vineyards. Both books have a soft cover, which I especially enjoy as I like to read books in bed or laying on a chaise lounge on the patio. They are also very reasonably priced. I highly recommend both books as a definite must read

Fue necesario unir los campesinos y trabajadores -los victimas del capitalismo- para llevar a cabo la revolucion democratica en el pais de Sudafrica, en contra de los mismos capitalistas. Y no solo fue una clase capitalista en su pais, sino un imperialismo que extraia ganancias de muchos paises del sur y centro de su continente.

Parece ironico, pero asi es el dilema del capitalismo en su fase imperialista actual. Sudafrica era uno de los ultimos ejemplos de lo que Lenin explicaba a principios del siglo XX en relacion de los paises sometidos al capitalismo (Imperialismo: la fase superior del capitalismo). Habiendo consumido su periodo revolucionario con la Guerra Civil de los Estados Unidos, de 1865 en adelante la burguesia ya no es capaz de ofrecer el liderazgo para ninguna revolucion democratica en ningun rincon del mundo. Unicamente los campesinos y trabajadores pueden instalar las leyes de igualdad, con la burguesia esperando impaciente de regresar del margen para tomar el poder una vez consumidas las necesidades democraticas.

Con Nelson Mandela de frente, el Congreso Nacional Africano impuso los minimos de igualdad, y asi acabo con un imperio pequeno pero tan brutal como el de Israel hoy en dia. Sudafrica sigue capitalista, pero ya no tiene segregacion para extraer super-ganancias.
from la Ciudad de Mexico

Este libro relata como Nelson Mandela y de su organización, el Congreso Africano Nacional, conquistaron el liderazgo de la revolución sudafricana democrática. Escrito en 1985 como un informe para la orientación de los militantes del Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores y de la Alianza de la Juventud Socialista en sus actividades contra el apartado, describe el papel internacionalista monumental de Cuba socialista. Su apoya militar y solidario a Angola enfrentó la agresión del régimen racista sudafricana entre 1975 y 1988, constituyéndose parte fundamental de la victoria del movimiento democrático antiracista en los años finales del siglo XX. Las lecciones de liderazgo revolucionario de Mandela y sus compañeros y compañeras sustenta el labor de los revolucionarios obreros anticapitalistas de hoy y mañana, en todos los países imperialistas -recordamos que Sudáfrica era un país imperialista-. Estas lecciones, especialmente para los que quieren erradicar el racismo y buscan un cambio social fundamental en los Estados Unidos examinan esta obra detalladamente.

Though published in 1985, nine years before the victory of the African National Congress against Apartheid, the main article in this book-length magazine Jack Barnes's "The Coming Revolution in South Africa," forecasts the way forward for the democratic revolution in South Africa and shows how the roots of a future socialist revolution in South Africa flow out of that struggle. Barnes, thenational secretary of the Socialist Workers Party, explains why the democratic tasks of national liberation and unification advanced by the ANC and its allies were the correct way forward for the peoples of South Africa. With examples from the policies of Lenin and the Russian Bolsheviks and theCuba and Nicaraguan revolutions, Barnes takes on sectarians who attacked the ANC because it did not have an explicitly anticapitalist program. Along with Barnes' speech, this issue contains "The Freedom Charter"--the political program the ANC advanced in the antiapartheid struggle -- "The Future Belongs to US" a Speech by ANC leader Oliver Tambo, a speech by Fidel Castro explainingwhy and how Cuba supported the freedom struggle in Angola, and a summary of the then latest stages in the South African struggle by Ernest Harsch.

Bloody good book - told as it was. Everyone should read it.

An excellent read. The book really took me back. I grew up pre-Zimbabwe and was 14 years old at the independence of Zimbabwe. I left in '87. The book is a great account of the "bush war"..you're really there!

His association of music with periods in his life "took me back" too. I remember dancing to ABBA "dancing queen" on a farm in Karoi..I grew up in Karoi and went to the Primary school there..I remember seeing the helicopters landing on the rugby field near the police station, directly opposite the school. I remember talking to the "army guys" and eating "rat packs",...convoys to Makuti, stopping halfway at a motel called "Elephants Walk". I went to school and was a border at Ellis Robins. I remember the seniors bringing rifles to school and handing them in to the house master at the beginning of a new school term....Alot of memories and this book brought them flooding back!...Although there was war, I would not have traded my upbringing, barefoot and running around the farm, for anything!

Once again, it's a great book to read.

This book reminds one of the horrors of war much like All Quiet on the Western Front did. The author starts out a middle class idealist, and concludes a hardened killer who in his early 20's needs to make sense of all the senseless deaths that surrounded his formative years. The Rhodesian "bush" war was bloody, and appears to have accomplished nothing, in that the present state of Zimbabwe almost makes those who fought against the "terrorists" heroes for trying to keep Rhodesian and southern Africa out of the hands of despots like Mugabe. I hope the Movement for Democratic Change really is a movement for democratic change, and that some day all Zimbabwean's will be free to participate in their country.

Great book, and don't forget to read the sequel "Survival Course".

Following rapidly on the heels of "When you know that you know that you know!" comes 'Tarnished Idols', a story which clearly stems from the writer's early experience as a journalist. As used to be the case with so many of her books written in South Africa, before she immigrated to Canada , it is mainly set in a newspaper office, and provides an absorbing picture of what the production of a daily paper entailed before the advent of computers. She is known to paint human relationships very vividly, and this she does in Tarnished Idols. with an intensity which is, in some ways, a departure from the kind of story she loves to tell. South Africa is at war in the nineteen-forties, and this book deals with the consequences of love at first sight, and the enduring passion of a teenager for an air force pilot.

Her characters are so real you want to shake them because of some of the antics they indulge in. She has woven another gripping tale - set in her beautiful South Africa - which is difficult to put down. She is a keen observer of human frailty and most, if not all, her characters are based on people she has known. The course of true love certainly does not run smooth, but the author manages to bring all the characters into their right places by the end. Enjoy!

Her characters are so real that you want to shake them because of some of the antics they indulge in. Again she has woven a gripping tale - set in her beautiful South Africa - which is difficult to put down.

She is a keen observer of human frailty and most,if not all,her characters are based on people she has known. The course of true love certainly does not run smooth, but the author always manages to bring all the characters into their right places by the end.