Contemporary fiction books set in South Africa (15)
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1.
The Promise by Damon Galgut EN
Country: Africa / 
South Africa
South Africa
Description:
WINNER OF THE 2021 BOOKER PRIZE A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE On her deathbed, Rachel Swart makes a promise to Salome, the family's Black maid. This promise will divide the family--especially her children: Anton, the golden boy; Astrid, whose beauty is her power; and the youngest, Amor, whose life is shaped by feelings of guilt. Reunited by four funerals over thirty years, the dwindling Swart family remains haunted by the unmet promise, just as their country is haunted by its own failures. The Promise is an epic South African drama that unfurls against the unrelenting march of history, sure... continue
2.
No Time Like the Present by Nadine Gordimer EN
Country: Africa / South Africa
South Africa
Description:
A sharply observed new novel about post-apartheid South Africa from the Nobel Prize winner Nadine Gordimer is one of our most telling contemporary writers. With each new work, she attacks—with a clear-eyed fierceness, a lack of sentimentality, and a deep understanding of the darkest depths of the human soul—her eternal themes: the inextricable link between personal and communal history; the inescapable moral ambiguities of daily life; the political and racial tensions that persist in her homeland, South Africa. And in each new work is fresh evidence of her literary genius: in the sharpness of ... continue
3.
O melhor tempo é o presente by Nadine Gordimer PT
Country: Africa / South Africa
South Africa
Description:
Amantes clandestinos no passado, devido às leis raciais que proibiam relações entre negros e brancos, hoje Jabulile Gumede e Steve Reed vivem numa África do Sul democrática. Ambos foram ativistas que lutaram com todas as forças pelo fim do apartheid, e seus filhos, felizmente, já nasceram em um tempo e em um lugar de liberdade.
Mas à medida que os ideais de uma vida melhor para todos são ameaçados por tensões políticas e raciais, pela ressaca das ambiguidades morais e pelo enorme abismo entre os privilegiados ... continue
4.
The Cry of Winnie Mandela : A Novel by Njabulo Simakahle Ndebele EN
Country: Africa / South Africa
South Africa
Description:
A group of women at a specific period in the history of Southern Africa find their family life under the pressures of capitalist modernity and apartheid. These ordinary, intimate stories are anchored to the more powerful public stories of the Penelope of ancient Greek mythology (who waited 18 years while her husband Odyseeus was away), and Winnie Mandela (who waited for 27 years). The life of Winnie Mandela remains one of the great unfolding dramas of our times; a tale of triumphs and tragedies that is only just beginning to be examined.
5.
Innards : Stories by Magogodi oaMphela Makhene EN
Country: Africa / South Africa
South Africa
Description:
This incendiary debut of linked stories narrates the everyday lives of Soweto residents, from the early years of apartheid to its dissolution and beyond.
6.
The Good Doctor by Damon Galgut EN
Country: Africa / South Africa
South Africa
Description:
When Laurence Waters arrives at his post in a rural hospital in new South Africa, and convinces Dr. Ruth Ngema, head of the hospital, to set up clinics in the villages, the crime and corruption that follow put everyone involved in danger.
8.
L'âge de fer by J. M. Coetzee FR
Country: Africa / South Africa
South Africa
Description:
En 1986, au Cap, Elizabeth Curren se meurt d'un cancer, et elle est brutalement confrontée à l'explosion de rage que le système de l'Apartheid a engendrée. Dans une longue lettre à sa fille exilée en Amérique, Elizabeth relate les événements qui ponctuent ses derniers jours. Témoin de l'émeute et de la répression dans un township voisin, elle découvre le corps criblé de balles du fils de sa domestique noire, et assiste à l'exécution par la police d'un autre adolescent... Parvenue au terme de son existence, avec pour ange de la mort et confident un clochard réfugié chez elle, Elizabeth tentera ... continue
9.
If You Want to Make God Laugh by Bianca Marais EN
Country: Africa / South Africa
South Africa
Description:
A rich, unforgettable story of three unique women in post-Apartheid South Africa who are brought together in their darkest time and discover the ways that love can transcend the strictest of boundaries. In a squatter camp on the outskirts of Johannesburg, seventeen-year-old Zodwa lives in desperate poverty, under the shadowy threat of a civil war and a growing AIDS epidemic. Eight months pregnant, Zodwa carefully guards secrets that jeopardize her life. Across the country, wealthy socialite Ruth appears to have everything her heart desires, but it's what she can't have that leads to her breakd... continue
11.
Evening Primrose: a heart-wrenching novel for our times by Kopano Matlwa EN
Country: Africa / South Africa
South Africa
Description:
A powerful and timely novel from 'South Africa's Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie' (Bookseller) . 'Heart-wrenching' Grazia . With urgency and tenderness Evening Primrose explores issues of race, gender and the medical profession through the eyes of a junior doctor. When Masechaba finally achieves her childhood dream of becoming a doctor, her ambition is tested as she faces the stark reality of South Africa's public healthcare system. As she leaves her deeply religious mother and makes friends with the politically-minded Nyasha, Masechaba's eyes are opened to the rising xenophobic tension that carries ... continue
12.
Welcome to Our Hillbrow by Phiswane Mpe EN
Country: Africa / South Africa
South Africa
Description:
Welcome to Our Hillbrow is an exhilarating and disturbing ride through the chaotic and hyper-real zone of Hillbrow—microcosm of all that is contradictory, alluring, and painful in the postapartheid South African psyche. Everything is there: the shattered dreams of youth, sexuality and its unpredictable costs, AIDS, xenophobia, suicide, the omnipotent violence that often cuts short the promise of young people’s lives, and the Africanist understanding of the life continuum that does not end with death but flows on into an ancestral realm. Infused with the rhythms of the inner-city pulsebeat, thi... continue
13.
Elizabeth Costello: Eight Lessons by J. M. Coetzee EN
Country: Africa / South Africa
South Africa
Description:
Elizabeth Costello is an Australian writer of international renown; she is f-ted, studied, honoured. Famous principally for an early novel that established her reputation and from which, it seems, she will never escape, she has reached the stage, late in life, where her remaining function is to be venerated and applauded. One of a new breed of intellectual nomads, her life has become a series of engagements in sterile conference rooms throughout the world - a private consciousness obliged to reveal itself to a curious public: the presentation of a major award at an American college where she i... continue
14.
The House Gun by Nadine Gordimer EN
Country: Africa / South Africa
South Africa
Description:
When Harald and Claudia's son, Duncan, murders a man with whom he had unusual relations, his parents' love, loyalty, and self-worth as nurturers are tested. By the Nobel Prize-winning author of None to Accompany Me. 40,000 first printing.
15.
Country: Africa / South Africa
South Africa
Description:
After years teaching Romantic poetry at the Technical University of Cape Town, David Lurie, middle-aged and twice divorced, has an impulsive affair with a student. The affair sours; he is denounced and summoned before a committee of inquiry. Willing to admit his guilt, but refusing to yield to pressure to repent publicly, he resigns and retreats to his daughter Lucy's isolated farm. For a time, his daughter's influence and the natural rhythms of the farm promise to harmonize his discordant life. But the balance of power in the country is shifting. He and Lucy become victims of a savage and dis... continue