Items18The creator’s order
  1. 1The woman next door (2016)The woman next door (2016)Published Jan 1, 2016Hortensia and Marion are neighbors and recent widows who know exactly how to annoy each other. An unexpected turn forces them to spend time together. Pick this for prickly comedy and a Cape Town neighborhood where two lives touch the same history and remember it differently.0
  2. 2The book of happenstance (2011)The book of happenstance (2011)Published Jan 1, 2011A lexicographer takes a job in Durban gathering Afrikaans words that have fallen out of use. Then someone steals the shells she’s spent a lifetime collecting. Choose Dirk and Ingrid Winterbach’s translation for a mystery that cares as much about what we preserve and why as it does about the missing…0
  3. 3Welcome to our Hillbrow (2011)Welcome to our Hillbrow (2011)Published Jan 1, 2011Follow the language of rumor through a Johannesburg neighborhood where people arrive from all over. Mpe connects the city with rural Tiragalong and even Oxford, so leaving Hillbrow never ends its hold on the characters. A compact, demanding choice if you want to see what gossip can do to people’s…0
  4. 4The heart of redness (2001)The heart of redness (2001) 10.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2001A proposed casino divides a village on the Eastern Cape coast. As Camagu is drawn into the dispute, the story moves between the project and divisions over a prophecy generations earlier. Choose it if you like historical fiction that gives the people living with that history a say in what to do next.0
  5. 5Agaat (2010)Agaat (2010)Published Jan 1, 2010When Milla can no longer care for herself, only Agaat remains at her side. Decades earlier, Milla brought Agaat into her home and made her a servant. Set aside time for this long farm novel in Michiel Heyns’s translation from Afrikaans. Its greatest force is in the memories and dependencies neither…0
  6. 6Mhudi, an epic of South African native life a hundred years ago (1930)Mhudi, an epic of South African native life a hundred years ago (1930)Published Jan 1, 1930Mhudi and Ra-Thaga’s love story sits amid clashes involving Barolong, Boer, and Matebele communities in the 1830s. Plaatje draws on oral tradition and gives the heroine plenty to say and decide. Take this if you want the scale of a historical epic without losing sight of whom its upheavals matter…0
  7. 7Coconut (2007)Coconut (2007) 10.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2007Privilege comes with a cost for Ofilwe. Fikile wants some of the polish and security Ofilwe can take for granted. Matlwa lets you hear both young women before drawing conclusions about either one. Start here for a short novel in which class and belonging come down to the words people use around…0
  8. 8The good doctor (2003)The good doctor (2003) 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2003Laurence arrives at a nearly deserted rural hospital with plans to revive it. Frank has been there long enough to doubt the effort. Galgut lets the more cynical doctor tell the story, which makes the gap between their motives and their results unusually hard to judge.0
  9. 9None to accompany me (1994)None to accompany me (1994) 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 1994Vera Stark is a lawyer working with people trying to reclaim land just before South Africa’s first election with universal adult suffrage. Read it for the way Gordimer makes Vera’s family life and choices in the office complicate each other. Public change gives her more to answer for, including…0
  10. 10Wrath of the Ancestors (1980)Wrath of the Ancestors (1980) 10.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 1980Zwelinzima leaves his studies to lead the Mpondomise in the Eastern Cape. The decisions expected of him carry consequences for a household as well as for the people he leads. Jordan began the English translation from isiXhosa, and Phyllis Jordan helped bring it to publication. Start here if you…0