there is the high veld, the middle veld, the low veld, the bush veld, and now thoughts from the thorn veld,
Patric Tariq Mellet, The Lie of 1652: A Decolonised History of Land (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2020) PATRIC Mellet has multi-ethnic roots and a family history disrupted by apartheid’s Population Registration Act. This book involves a […]
FOR many years Jacob Zuma, faced by allegations of corruption around the arms deal of the late 1990s and his later association with the Gupta family, demanded his day in court. Yet this was a […]
Angelo Agrizzi, Inside the Belly of the Beast: The Real Bosasa Story ([N.p.]: Truth be Told Publishing, 2020) TWO photographs: one shows a slim, 16-year-old trainee chef; the other, a corpulent ageing man with a […]
‘The gap between rich and poor can’t be resolved without deliberate inequality-busting policies, and too few governments are committed to these’ (Oxfam India CEO Amitabh Behar). THERE is a post doing the rounds on Facebook, […]
Anton Harber, So, for the Record: Behind the Headlines in an Era of State Capture (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2020) WHEN the nation’s largest and most influential paper publishes a series of stories over several years […]
PREDICTABLY an eleventh-hour trade deal was reached to seal the Brexit process triggered by the 2016 referendum in which a majority of self-pitying, self-harming British voters turned their backs on the most constructive development in […]
Bronwyn Davids, Lansdowne Dearest: My Family’s Story of Forced Removals (Cape Town: Kwela Books, 2020) THERE has been much contestation over the definition and identity of the South African coloured community. Bronwyn Davids brings her […]
Hermann Giliomee, The Afrikaners: A Concise History (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2020) THERE is much to be said for concise books: many modern publications are far too long. This one is the progeny of an 18-hour […]
IN the early hours of a winter’s morning, when the air is cold and still, you can hear the traffic from the N3, the Johannesburg to Durban highway, from our house; mainly trucks changing gear […]
Mandy Wiener, The Whistleblowers (Johannesburg: Macmillan, 2020) MANDY Wiener’s book needs no sub-title; and it is a scathing indictment of the state of South Africa. It begins with a lament for whistleblowers amid doubt about […]