'Kiley Reid is the writer we need now' CHLOE BENJAMIN, AUTHOR OF THE IMMORTALISTS

What happens when you do the right thing for the wrong reason?

Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living showing other women how to do the same. A mother to two small girls, she started out as a blogger and has quickly built herself into a confidence-driven brand. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains' toddler one night. Seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, a security guard at their local high-end supermarket accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year old Briar. A small crowd gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make it right.

But Emira herself is aimless, broke and wary of Alix's desire to help. At twenty-five, she is about to lose her health insurance and has no idea what to do with her life. When the video of Emira unearths someone from Alix's past, both women find themselves on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know about themselves, and each other.

With empathy and piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age explores the awkwardness of transactional relationships, what it means to make someone 'family', the complicated reality of being a grown-up and the consequences of doing the right thing for the wrong reason.

Soon to be a major motion picture!

Poppie Nogena’s arduous journey covers 40 years of South Africa’s history, sweeping through the riots of Sharpeville, Soweto and Cape Town, on to an indefinite but unpromising future. The plot reflects the brutality and injustice of the Apartheid system, while Elsa Joubert’s characterisations reflects the courage and fortitude of people in the face of hardship and difficulty.

Poppie’s contented childhood in the Cape’s countryside came to an end when she married a migrant worker, and was forced by the authorities to move with him and their young family to the unfamiliar and bewildering city of Cape Town.

No sooner had she established her roots in the new township, when the laws changed and she was informed of her obligation to relocate to the Ciskei, her husband’s homeland. He, as a migrant worker, was permitted to remain in the Cape to work.

Over a ten-year period, Poppie fought the heinous ‘pass law’ system, winning limited extensions to the permit that would allow her to live and work in Cape Town and enable her to keep the family together and provide an education for her children.

Her own anger was shared by thousands and inevitably the brooding undercurrent of discontent exploded throughout South Africa. Suddenly, there were no further extensions. Poppie and her children were forcibly removed from their home and ‘resettled’ in a new township, hundreds of miles away near East London.

The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena is an epic tale of the endless adversity and struggle of a humble black woman under Apartheid laws. Poppie emerges from being a simple country girl to becoming an archetypal heroine of South Africa.

Toe Claire die krat met leë drankbottels ontdek, skiet haar gemoed vol. Sy is tot sterwens toe moeg vir haar man se drinkery en verlaat hom tydelik deur te ontsnap na haar huis by die see. Aan die ander kant dra sy swaar aan haar aandeel aan Kris se probleem.

Dit grief haar dat haar man so pateties afhanklik geword het van drank en dat dit veroorsaak dat selfs sy waardigheid in die slag bly. Die ergste is sy ontkenning van die probleem en dat hy halsstarrig op ’n pad van selfvernietiging is.

Daarenteen weifel Wanda by haar eie vurk in die pad. Net toe sy dink Sephus het sy ou streke laat staan, steek dit weer kop uit en moet sy uit noodweer optree om dinge stil te hou want die dorp is klein.

Sy ken haar man en sy beheer oor haar. Hy maak haar sag om haar lojaliteit te koop, maar sy is gekonfyt daarin om hom te paai en sy onbeheersde woedebuie te temper, hoewel dit nou so geëskaleer het dat dit onhoudbaar is. Beide vriendinne sukkel om emosioneel kop bo water te hou, maar daar is troos in susterskap.

It all began with the anger of Laduma, the Thunder God, and the birth of a special child with strange, flickering eyes. This is the tale of a rural family – Mabena, Mantombi and their grandson Duma – who are exiled from the ancestral home and thrown into the turmoil of township life. They take Duma to Boekenhout, on the outskirts of a city, where Mabena, the grandfather, becomes a bridge between the past and the present, the urban and the rural.

The harder Mabena tries to keep the values of the past alive, the more intrigued and bedazzled Duma becomes by urban life and jazz music. The introduction of the apartheid homelands policies forces the family to return to their old village, where Duma is to be initiated into manhood. We Shall Not Weep is a beautifully written lyrical novel about a traditional African community in change, swayed by the forces of modernity and political change.

“I could have guessed that one day I’d hear something I shouldn’t have on that party line. It was one thing listening to the gossip and the small talk that buzzed along its wires all the time, but it was something else to hear, on a hot Saturday morning before you started high school, that your best friend’s mother, the woman you wished you could somehow have married one day, was dead.”

Dangerous boyhood memories surface when a letter brings news of Karl’s suicide.

Karl, Max’s enigmatic friend who taught him how to toughen up when he’d first arrived in their small Lowveld town. Karl, whose beautiful mother became the object of Max’s raging teenage obsession.

Her tragic death brought a brutal end to the two boys’ friendship. But why exactly did Karl and his family leave town so soon thereafter?

As Max tries to make sense of what is transpiring, his complicity in the ills of the past begins to gnaw at him.

Due South of Copenhagen is Mark Winkler’s masterful tale of the friendships between men, small-town living during the height of South Africa’s Border War, and about what it takes to put the past to rest.

‘This is a searing and incredibly important book, storytelling at its best’ Donal Ryan

‘A cat has seven souls in Arabic. In English cats have nine lives. You probably have both nine lives and seven souls, because otherwise I don’t know how you’ve made it this far.'

Sami’s childhood is much like any other - an innocent blend of family and school, of friends and relations and pets (including stray cats and dogs, and the turtle he keeps on the roof).

But growing up in one of the largest cities in Syria, with his country at war with itself, means that nothing is really normal. And Sami’s hopes for a better future are ripped away when he is conscripted into the military and forced to train as a map maker.

Sami may be shielded from the worst horrors of the war, but it will still be impossible to avoid his own nightmare…

Inspired by extraordinary true events, The Stray Cats of Homs is the story of a young man who will do anything to keep the dream of home alive, even in the face of unimaginable devastation. Tender, wild and unbearably raw, it is a novel which will stay with you for ever.

Nuwe plek, nuwe skool, nuwe mense. Ek het my eenkant gehou, net in die middae pinball gespeel by die Griek se kafee op die hoek. Pinball was my ding. My nuwe klasmaats het gesien hoe ek speel.

“Kyk hoe jive die cat daar agter die pinball,” lag die een. “Ek scheme dié Randfontein cat is nie te bad nie.”

Omdat ek ’n soort van pinball wizard was, het hulle my nie so geboelie soos vir my kleinboet Johnny nie.
 
Ná ’n lewe in die skadus neem ’n man stelling in, rewolwer in die hand, om sy allerlaaste misdaad te pleeg.
 
Terwyl hy in ’n donker sitkamer wag, loop sy herinneringe wye draaie: na harde grootwordjare in Randfontein en Germiston se strate, waar selfs jou eie familie jou kon bloedmond slaan. Hy onthou die Suid-Afrika waarin hy opgegroei het: die Castle Lager en Lucky Strikes agter skoolpawiljoene, die seuns met aanvalsgewere op die grens.
 
Vir ’n hierjy soos hy was sy pad reeds vroeg uitgemeet: hoëtroustelle steel, baie Klipdrift, verbeteringskool, daarná die army. En toe sluk Sunnyside se nagklubs en onderwêreld hom in.
 
In André Krüger se aangrypende roman oor familie, verraad en wraak – geskryf in die taal van die straat en die tyd – voer een man ’n uiterste stryd teen sy lotsbestemming.

In Iran, 1953, a driver named Behrouz discovers an abandoned baby in an alleyway. When he adopts her, naming her Aria, he has no idea how profoundly this fiery, blue-eyed orphan will shape his future.

As she grows, Aria is torn between the three women fated to mother her: the wife of Behrouz, who beats her; the wealthy widow Fereshteh, who offers her refuge but cannot offer her love, and the impoverished Mehri, whose secrets will shatter everything Aria thought she knew about her life.

Meanwhile, the winds of change are stirring in Tehran. Rumours are spreading of a passionate religious exile in Paris called Khomeini, who seems to offer a new future for the country. In the midst of this tumult, Aria falls in love with an Armenian boy caught on the wrong side of the revolution. And before long she will be swept up in an uprising which will change the destiny of the land - and its people - forever.

’n Beter lewe iewers anders?

Terwyl hy sit en teug aan ’n negroni op ’n terras, skryf die skrywer Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer ’n lang brief aan ’n vriend in sy tuisland. ’n Brief waarin hy rapporteer oor sy lewe as ontdekker in die labirintiese Italiaanse hawestad Genua (“La Superba”).

Migrasie is die hooftema in hierdie outobiografiese roman waarin die lot van ’n immigrant uit die noorde van Europa gekontrasteer word met die lotsbestemming van die arm immigrante uit Afrika wat gedisillusioneerd sukkel om kop bo water te hou.

Die mooiste meisie van Genua, wat die skrywer aanvanklik vanaf ’n afstand af betrag, word sy vlugtende Ariadne deur die labirint van stegies waar hopeloosheid, prostitusie en verlore drome die botoon voer. Net soos die ander immigrante raak Ilja verlore in die fantasie wat hy rondom die stad opgetower het, met verbysterende gevolge.

The Innocence of Roast Chicken focuses on an Afrikaans/English family in the Eastern Cape and their idyllic life on their grandparents’ farm, seen through the eyes of the little girl, Kate, and the subtle web of relationships that is shattered by a horrifying incident in the mid-1960s.

Scenes from Kate’s early life are juxtaposed with Johannesburg in 1989 when Kate, now married to Joe, a human rights lawyer, stands aside from the general euphoria that is gripping the nation. Her despair, both with her marriage and with the national situation, resolutely returns to a brutal incident one Christmas day when Kate was thrust into an awareness of what lay beneath her blissful childhood.

Beautifully constructed, The Innocence of Roast Chicken is painful, evocative, beautifully drawn and utterly absorbing.

The doctors and nurses at a small hospital in an African town are fighting an uphill battle against the Aids pandemic, made worse by the interventions of Holmes, the budget-conscious superintendent, and his bungling sidekick, Thunderbird.

The rebellious and profane Morgan thwarts every new rule in his quest to save his patients, most of whom are dying because they lack the resources to buy back their lives with over-priced drugs. His efforts are valiantly supported by the enigmatic Oumar, the likeable Kenyan, the beautiful Violet, and Rebecca, the battleaxe with a heart of gold. Then there is Mary, with her passion for birds, holding Morgan’s heart in her frail hands; Naledi, the success story, who is brought back from the brink of death; and Rastodika, the untameable spirit.

When funds are needed for a kidney transplant, Morgan conspires with Father Michael; Dorcas, the shebeen queen; and Rachel, the whore, to make the rich Mr B organise a Beerfest to pay for the operation. But then things don’t work out exactly as they had planned.

In ’n oorloggeteisterde Angola, word kaptein Piet Prinsloo gekonfronteer met meer as terroriste uit die Kongo wanneer sy verlede hom op Oukersaand inhaal.

’n Span bankrowers kom hul moses teë in die Chuosberge. ’n Veldwagter is op sy hoede toe twee uiters verdagte karakters by Etosha opdaag. Drie boesemvriende raak verlief op een meisie. En ’n skrywer en ’n beeldskone filmster is gestrand op die Kaitschavlei.

In vyf stories skets Doc Immelman wêrelde waar hardebaarde kan liefhê, helde nog met die vuis kan slaan en kameeldoringbome arabesk teen die laaste bietjie lig van die dag geëts is.

South Africa, KwaZulu Natal, 1992: Twelve year old Simo begins Secondary school and his twin sisters begin first year. But neither him nor his family can foresee what happens in the years ahead. The IFP and ANC war threatens the lives of many; Simo forced to be part of a guerrilla group and his mother deals with war losses, they both pick up the pieces and thrive after the war. Two decades later, Simo’s secret past is a threat in his love life, like cancer it crawls up his skin and he must find what he longs for: Forgiveness

In Sirië vrees Ilizabith elke dag vir haar lewe, die man wat haar sy vrou gemaak het is boos. In Libanon probeer Pascal haar roeping uitleef, maar sal haar ouers dit insien? Hoewel hulle in dieselfde skool is in Pretoria verskil Talitha en Yasmine se wêrelde hemelsbreed. Talitha probeer vreesloos veg vir wat reg is en Yasmine probeer oorleef. Deur 'n Goddelike saamloop kruis Ilizabith, Pascal en Talitha en Yasmine se paaie, en elkeen moet besluit of hulle gehoorsaam sal wees aan God. 

The year is 1986. While most of Duggart’s mentally afflicted inhabitants are scattered in mental hospitals, traditional healers’ quarters and churches’ healing quarters, Dooks , like an uncomfortable number of other mentally ill people, is singing to a different tune . Dooks Digame is in a class of his own. Funny, witty, scary, wise,spooky , weird, creepy, sick, intense, psychic, shrink, dangerous: all these labels have been used to describe Dooks . He has as many labels as he has fans ... and enemies. He is quite simply a special, unique case. While many people fantasise about being rich and famous one day, and occasionally imagine what their lives would be like once they had hit the jackpot, Dooks doesn’t waste his precious time with such wishful thinking. In his dreamy world, he is already a multimillionaire. But who cares about money if it cannot buy one a sound mind?

A letter among her deceased ex-husband’s belongings rips open Theresa’s world. For years she has turned her back on Theo, a man who spent the last two decades of his life institutionalised, and on their shared past in a country where teenage boys were conscripted to fight on ‘the Border’ in a war that those back home knew little about. Least of all Theresa, who spent her days dreaming of discos and first kisses.

Realising that the letter was written by a Cuban soldier and addressed to his child – who, if still alive, would be at least forty years old – Theresa heads for Cuba: to search for the soldier’s child, to deliver the letter, to atone in some way for Theo’s deeds and for her own ignorance.

In sultry Cuba, amid its picturesque 1950s cars and the fragrant smoke of its cigars, Theresa’s search connects her intimately with those branded ‘the enemy’ during the war in Angola as she begins to unravel what growing up in the South Africa of that time really meant.

From the Booker-winning Irish author, a brilliant and moving novel about fame, sexual power, and a daughter’s search to understand her mother’s hidden truths

This is the story of Irish theatre legend Katherine O’Dell, as told by her daughter Norah. It tells of early stardom in Hollywood, of highs and lows on the stages of Dublin and London’s West End. Katherine’s life is a grand performance, with young Norah watching from the wings.

But this romance between mother and daughter cannot survive Katherine’s past, or the world’s damage. As Norah uncovers her mother’s secrets, she acquires a few of her own. Then, fame turns to infamy when Katherine decides to commit a bizarre crime.

Actress is about a daughter’s search for the truth: the dark secret in the bright star, and what drove Katherine finally mad.

Brilliantly capturing the glamour of post-war America and the shabbiness of 1970s Dublin, Actress is an intensely moving, disturbing novel about mothers and daughters and the men in their lives. A scintillating examination of the corrosive nature of celebrity, it is also a sad and triumphant tale of freedom from bad love, and from the avid gaze of the crowd.

Danny – Dhananjaya Rajaratnam – is an undocumented immigrant in Sydney, denied refugee status after he has fled from his native Sri Lanka. Working as a cleaner, living out of a grocery storeroom, for three years he’s been trying to create a new identity for himself. And now, with his beloved vegan girlfriend, Sonja, with his hidden accent and highlights in his hair, he is as close as he has ever come to living a normal Australian life.

But then one morning, Danny learns a female client of his has been murdered. When Danny recognizes a jacket left at the murder scene, he believes it belongs to another of his clients ― a doctor with whom he knows the woman was having an affair. Suddenly Danny is confronted with a choice: come forward with his knowledge about the crime and risk being deported, or say nothing, and let justice go undone? Over the course of a single day, evaluating the weight of his past, his dreams for the future, and the unpredictable, often absurd reality of living invisibly and undocumented, he must wrestle with his conscience and decide if a person without rights still has responsibilities.

Propulsive, insightful, and full of Aravind Adiga’s signature wit and magic, Amnesty is both a timeless moral struggle and a universal story with particular urgency today.

Granate bloei in Jerusalem Marc, ’n Suid-Afrikaanse kunstenaar, gaan na Jerusalem om sy Joodse ouma te ontmoet. Terug in Suid-Afrika moet besluit: Is hy Christen of Jood? Sien hy kans om sy aan sy met geweld en onrus in Israel te leef – al is dit saam met Rivkah? Is daar vir hulle ’n toekoms saam? Hatikvah Rivkah verloor haar ongebore baba in ’n miskraam. Onbeantwoorde vrae tussen Marc en Rivkah lei tot huwelikspanning tussen hulle twee. Sal Rivkah weer kans sien om swanger te word?

When a strike by the University of Adamastor’s technical staff coincides with a lull in sound operator Vida’s employment, she agrees to stage-manage a university event. There she meets the Head of Effective Communication, Simon Landor. He is caught up in a massive student protest and his communication is anything but effective. Vida, who rescues strays, whether pets or people, steps in. A host of engaging characters populate this novel exploring communication and connection in a complex world.

Die verhaal van 'n slavin wat as die enigste oorlewende van 'n mislukte ekspedisie in die hart van Afrika haar terugtrek in die hol stam van 'n kremetartboom. In toenemende verlatenheid herleef sy haar vroeëre bestaan: hoe sy as kind in haar tuisdorp gevange geneem en weggevoer is, haar lewe in 'n hawestad aan die ooskus as dienares van verskillende meesters, haar reis saam met haar laaste eienaar en beskermheer, haar lewe in die kremetartboom.

Hierdie belangrike Afrikaanse roman is reeds in verskeie ander tale gepubliseer, o.m. in Engels deur J.M. Coetzee. Die Italiaanse vertaling word bekroon met die Grinzane Cavour-prys in 1988 en in 1995 word die Franse vertaling verwerk vir die verhoog en opgevoer in die Thèâtre de l'Ante in Parys.

"Solank Afrikaans bestaan, sal dié boek waarskynlik die essensie daarvan bly verwarm." – Antjie Krog

Sewe haar gelede is Moriyah in Jerigo gevange geneem en met die merk van die Kanaänitiese gode
gebrandmerk. Maar noudat die Israeliete uiteindelik vrede in hulle land ervaar, sukkel Moriyah nog om haar eie
vrede te vind. As gevolg van die skandmerk op haar gesig, kruip sy agter haar sluier weg. Die mense in die dorp
behandel haar met veragtig en daarom is daar ook geen vooruitsigte vir ’n huwelik nie … of is daar?

Haar pa het iemand gevind wat bereid is om met haar te trou en sy hoop haar liefde vir kook sal die wewenaar
en sy seuns beïndruk. Maar iets loop vreeslik skeef en Moriyah moet vlug. Wanneer sy skuiling gaan soek in een
van die nuwe Levitiese asielstede, is sy glad nie voorbereid op die gevare, of die vyande – en onverwagte
bondgenote – wat sy gaan teëkom nie.

’n Lig van hoop is ’n aangrypende verhaal van ’n soeke na aanvaarding en liefde en die uiteindelike ontdekking
dat daar Een is wat ons altyd onvoorwaardelik aanvaar en liefhet.

Toe Daan van der Walt, 'n eerstydse Kalahari-boer, 'n vertigo-aanval kry, laai sy vervreemde seun hom by 'n monnikeklooster in China af. Onder leiding van Meester Yang moet Daan tai chi doen in 'n poging om sy balans te herstel. Maar daar is ook iets anders wat aan Daan vreet, iets wat hy van sy hart móét afkry voor hy sy weg na die hiernamaals kan vind. Dalk is dit tyd dat hy aan Magrieta, sy oorlede vrou, skryf en sê dat hy haar liefgehad het.

Twee weke is ’n hartroerende verhaal oor liefde, geloof en wat dit werklik beteken om ’n gesin te wees

Cole Blake staan op die punt om universiteit toe te gaan en die eerste treë na sy droom te neem. Maar toe hy sy finale semester in hoërskool begin, ontmoet hy vir Elise, ’n geheimsinnige nuwe meisie wat sy aandag en hart met die eerste oogopslag vasvang. Elise is daarop ingestel om van haar wilde weë agter te laat en weer die goeie meisie te wees wat sy eens was. Nie lank ná die semester begin het nie, sy ontdek sy sy is swanger. Agtien en alleen, besluit sy om haar geheim met Cole te deel. Cole wat nie afgeskrik word deur die nuus nie en wat vir die eerste keer in sy lewe verlief is, is vasbeslote om Elise te ondersteun. Selfs al beteken dit dat hy universiteit moet misloop, met haar trou en ’n ander man se kind moet grootmaak. Wanneer Elise besluit om haar baba te laat aanneem, word sy in verbinding gebring met Aaron en Lucy Williams wat na Bloomington, Indiana, getrek het om sewe pynlike jare van onvrugbaarheid te ontsnap. Met Cole wat oor haar waghou en Aaron en Lucy wat angstig wag om hul nuwe baba te verwelkom, neem Elise ’n onverwagte besluit – een wat almal se planne verander. Twee weke is ’n hartroerende verhaal wat wys hoe vinnig dinge in ’n tydperk van twee weke kan verander, maar bowenal oor liefde, geloof en wat dit werklik beteken om ’n gesin te wees.

Karen Kingsbury is ’n USA Today- en New York Times -topverkoperskrywer en Amerika se gewildste inspirerende romanskrywer. Daar het al meer as 50 romans uit haar pen verskyn en sy spog met verkope van meer as 20 miljoen boeke.