Memoirs & Bios

Memoirs are stories told by one of the characters involved. They are meant to be ‘true’ in that they relate to an actual person’s experience. Biographies are similar, except that they are written by a third party, the biographer. South Africa is big on memoirs at the moment, perhaps largely because for so long people have felt ‘bottled up’ but are now much more able to see value in their experiences and to express them. This is an exciting time in local literature.

Memoirs & Bios

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Africa in my Heart - A...
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Africa in my Heart - A...

I am greeted by the petrifying sight of thirty or sixty or seventy buffalo looming large at a distance, each of them staring at me. Just staring would be okay; I could handle that. But these are also coming at me.

I just stand there turned to stone, waiting for something to happen – something other, that is, than having a herd of cape buffalo running toward me. If it weren't for Peter, they surely would have trampled me to death. Fortunately, he recollects himself just in time to yell at me to get my ass behind the tree.

The tree. Hmm . . . What tree?

Price R600.00
THE WAUCHOPES -...
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THE WAUCHOPES -...

This book tells the story of the Wauchopes, a Xhosa family who rose to prominence in  the late 18th and early 19th centuries through the exploits of their patriarch, the Reverend Isaac Williams Dyobha Wauchope. Although this talented and restless man died heroically when serving as chaplain the troopship SS Mendi sank in 1917 after a collision off the Isle of Wight, taking more than 600 black South African troops to their deaths, it Is his life and work prior to his military service with which this book is concerned. 

Price R350.00
ALMOST A PREACHER -...
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ALMOST A PREACHER -...

This beautifully written memoir tells the almost unbelievable story of a South African boy who got as far as Grade 8 in his township primary school, and then hit a glass ceiling. Only through the intervention of a caring Catholic Father was he able to continue with his education. This same township boy recently retired from the University of South Africa as a professor emeritus in Systematic Theology and Theological Ethics. Between these two important events lies a life of extraordinary academic achievement in the United States and deep thinking about his native country. He has written four books, the most influential being The theory and Practice of Black Resistance to Apartheid: A Social-Ethical Analysis. which was later republished in America as Challenge to Apartheid.

Price R320.00
Through My Eyes
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Through My Eyes

 A autobiography of a veteran politician and a girl, who takes you on a journey from small town life in a southern African colonial city to serving as a Member of the South African Parliament for 20 years, reinventing herself along the way to be fit for purpose.

This is a conversation about how life and politics relate to ones beliefs and vice-versa but it is also a call to people everywhere to choose hope and reject fear. 

Price R300.00
The Accidental Frontline...
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The Accidental Frontline...

Television came late to apartheid South Africa. By the early 1980s the state-owned broadcaster was ready to expand the network to include the black majority. There were sound economic and propagandist reasons for this.  Msibi was among those recruited to be trained as technicians, journalists, and cameramen. The irony was that this enterprise coincided with the sustained popular uprising that finally led to the end of white minority rule. So the new generation of black television journalists went back into their own townships and ‘homelands’ to record, like no-one else could, the rising resentment and the reciprocal repressions that characterised large swathes of the country in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Price R290.00
Letters to Kuwait by Carlos...
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Letters to Kuwait by Carlos...

One day I suddenly thought, “My goodness, where’s Gareth?” So, I started looking. Last I heard, he was working with the British Army in Iraq, doing long stints: I tracked him down to prison cell in Kuwait. He had been used as a drug mule, nabbed and sentenced to death by hanging. His death was commuted to life and then further reduced to 15 years. When I located him, he had already been inside for four years. Thereafter I sent him a letter, every month, for 67 consecutive months. My Letters to Kuwait, were received by Gareth on his hidden device: news and comment on life in South Africa, my reflections on humanity and our world.

Price R290.00
ORPHANED, WITH LIVING PARENTS
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ORPHANED, WITH LIVING PARENTS

Many thousands of South African children are brought up by their grandmothers. This is one of the many manifestations of an unstable and distraught society, where the mother to child bond is too often broken, causing pain and a deep-seated sense of loss to both parties. Each Gogo-raised child’s story is different, but the general theme is the same: it deals with abandonment, with only qualified acceptance, but most of all with the simple absence of a real mother presence. The title of Vanessa Neo Mathope’s book – Orphaned, with Living Parents – tells it all. A monstrous imbalance has occurred, and the consequences run deep.

Price R260.00
Absorbing too much of the...
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Absorbing too much of the...

What do you do when your son tries to strangle your husband? Only the author of this remarkable book has a ready answer for that. She takes the reader along for a frequently shocking life - affirming ride. It describes a wife and mother's journey into her son's mental illness. Her story allows us to see that recovery is not a neat, linear path, but instead a convoluted and complicated daily journey. 'In sharing her adversities and how she coped,' comments Kendal Brown, 'maybe we can draw some lessons from this brave lady to be better prepared for the lemons life all to often hands us.'

Price R250.00
When Christmas Trees were...
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When Christmas Trees were...

Growing up in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa in the 1950’s and 1960’s the emphasis on the way of life was completely different to the present day some nearly 70 years later.

He writes of his reminiscences of his school days and especially his involvement in sport which was compulsory. Many of life’s lessons were learnt young on the rugby or cricket fields.

Price R250.00
No Taming of the Enthusiast
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No Taming of the Enthusiast

From skylarking at school to a professorship at the best university in Africa. It's all here in this collection of loosely related memoir-essays: all twists in the winding road the author travelled to become a female computer science professor at the University of cape Town. Born and schooled in the Netherlands, Ms Keet didn't stay home for long. Her winding road had a distinctly international flavour. She has worked and studied in Ireland and Italy, and briefly in Peru and Cuba, before finding her way back to South Africa. The author herself says of her essays: ' They offer a peek into a kitchen where underway is making of a woman into an academic scientist when the yeast has been gender-spiked against her chances of rising.'

Price R240.00
Dissecting Wobbles This is...
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Dissecting Wobbles This is...

Dissecting Wobbles is Andrew talking to himself, and to you, at the same time. It’s him remembering other times when he ran and jumped and landed on his face. It’s about how his Mom searched for answers, and eventually found the big bad diagnosis.

`A lesson in life. Better than the very best motivational speaker’s efforts I have come across`

- Fanie De Villiers.

Price R240.00
Letters to Lionel
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Letters to Lionel

When poet, novelist & teacher Lionel Abrahams died in 2004, his wife, Jane Fox, wrote him a series of letters because she needed to go on talking to him. She found them in her computer 17 years later & was moved to show them to close friends. They suggested she share them with the wider public. 

This book includes small 'snapshots' in words of their life together; a Jane's-eye view of Lionel as a man rather than as a writer. It shows how a human spirit can rise above physical difficulties (Lionel suffered from cerebral palsy) to become a mentor for others & a creative artist himself. 

Letters to Lionel is a beguiling, unusual book. An inspiration to anyone who has lost a partner or loved one to make a healing connection back to them, & so find a source of courage to continue. 

Price R225.00
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