This memoir/dissertation is about the relationship between two brothers growing up in apartheid South Africa during the eighties. Hlonkis wishes for his brother Thabang to live peacefully back home after years in exile. He reminisces about their earlier years in QwaQwa when his brother was playful and full of mischief like any other teenager. But when he comes back home his brother is a total stranger. He does not say much about his time in exile as a freedom fighter. Instead, Thabang hurries back to his birthplace in Thaba Nchu to lay the wreaths on their maternal side which includes a war veteran. Later he moves to Bloemfontein where a reception is held in his honour by the paternal side of the family. Meanwhile, no such event is held in Pimville, Soweto their home. The State charges Thabang criminally. Hlonkis believes the charges are trumped up and decides to go to court to prove it. His brother decides to represent himself at a case which attracts media attention and some protestors. The State convicts his brother and sentences him to time in jail. Whilst in prison, his health deteriorates. Prison is no comfort zone. But Thabang downplays it and hatches a plan to study further. His wish is to compensate for the gap left in his high school studies when he skipped the country to join the liberation army. His deteriorating condition gets in the way of applying for studies. Soon he is released from prison on medical parole. At their home in Pimville Thabang battles with a dreaded disease. The costs of medical attention and his acute state of illness make his recovery near impossible. Hlonkis can only get to internalise the lessons that his brother, on his sick bed, tries to impart. One of them is the spirit of generosity. But will Hlonkis ever find out the truth about his brother?

A Secretary's Wife is a work of historical fiction that draws from real events and people who emerge from the journals and letters of Lady Anne Barnard while she was in the Cape for the period 1797–1802. Lady Anne Lindsay marries a younger man without title or fortune. When he lands a position as secretary to the governor of the Cape, she is determined to go with him. They make the journey on a crowded ship to Cape Town and, on arrival, find the Cape expensive and turbulent. Narrow-minded people complain incessantly, slavery and hangings are rife, and shortages of wood, flour and other commodities are commonplace. Life improves after they are offered accommodation in the abandoned old Government House at the castle. They set up a home and try to understand the culture, the people around them and each other. Barnard begins to thrive leaving Anne to her own devices. At the same time, she come to terms with being barren within the context of her society. The use of a country cottage called Paradise helps the Barnards reconnect, but when Lady Anne suspects Barnard's infidelity with a slave woman and, due to ill health, the governor leaves the Cape, life can never be the same again. In writing this work, I have attempted to reimagine Lady Anne Barnard's life, in particular the personal aspects to which she may have made fleeting references, otherwise it is entirely fictional.

Primarily through adolescent narrators, Boys to Men is a series of short stories that attempts to identify the lessons, traumas, and joys that offer—and in some cases, withhold—the tools that allow Black boys to become Black men. In "Hard Ball," an eleven-year-old baseball player on the cusp of entering middle school wants nothing more than to be less sensitive. In "That's the Way Love Goes," a fifteen-year-old visiting Florida for the summer faces his first hurricane, alone with only his grandmother and unresolved family turmoil as company. And in "Hallelujah," a young church-goer publicly challenges a powerful, yet unruly spiritual leader in an endeavor to defend the people he loves. Through the intersections of masculinity, racism, family, and even religion, this collection offers a unique perspective of how these various experiences influence the everchanging manhood of Black boys.

The Genealogy of Desolate Landscapes looks at loss, sense of place, and how the communities we build keep us going during times of grief. At the heart of the collection is the speaker's relationship with his paternal grandmother and how her death from cancer impacted the speaker's relationship with his birth father's family and ultimately a part of their sense of self. Drawing from a range of forms, The Genealogy of Desolate Landscapes asks us how humans project their emotions onto the landscapes we inhabit and in looking at communities, those we are born into and those we cultivate, we may just find what propels us in times of grief.

Elizabeth is six when the ANC wins the first democratic elections in South Africa. While most of the country celebrates freedom, the only difference she notices is the growing intensity of her fears. Fear remains a faithful companion to Elizabeth as she grows up. She fears the rubbish trucks in her childhood, the Valentine's Dance in high school, and the remote possibility of passing out in a gutter somewhere in her first year of university. The short stories in this collection feature a similar (and often contradictory) version of the protagonist, from Elizabeth's childhood in eastern Johannesburg to her early adult years in an uptight Cape Town neighbourhood. Each story deals with a dilemma unique to each life stage and should be read in isolation. But its neighbours in the collection reveal the recurring tensions that influence an identity. In Elizabeth's case, these include the role of her religion, her repressed racism, and the bizarre benefits of gross inequality. All of these contribute to her urge, as a white girl in post-apartheid South Africa, to peer across from her and check if she should be somewhere, or someone, else.

Goodbye Letter to the Living explores power and trust in relationships—how quickly even the most loving relationships can turn into contests or battles of will. It looks at how one's perception of something shapes their realty. In In and Out, a love-struck bartender hunts for her maybe-cheating boyfriend. In The Wizard Who Wasn't, a young boy tries to help his sister, and save his parents' marriage, with a groundless belief that he has magic. And in the titular story, a drowned woman watches from the ocean as her sister tries to navigate both her grief and their narcissistic mother. Above all, this collection asks how far we'll go for the ones we love and whether some distances are just too great to conquer.

Please note: creative writing works are permanently embargoed in OpenBU. No public access is forecasted for these. To request private access, please click on the lock icon and fill out the appropriate web form. / Compendium of original fiction / 2999-01-01T00:00:00Z

Please note: creative writing works are permanently embargoed in OpenBU. No public access is forecasted for these. To request private access, please click on the lock icon and fill out the appropriate web form. / Creative writing / 2999-01-01T00:00:00Z

Borderlord Scuttle is set in an alternate version of South Africa's Eastern Cape based on the fictional papers of a thief named JB Niemand and the story follows his first adventure. After the end of a relationship with an artist named Rebekah, JB Niemand's own artistic aspirations dashed. He is uninspired and directionless with no way to sustain himself, let alone pursue a career as a painter. To solve both problems he turns to a life of crime. With his profits he plans to complete a pilgrimage to Alice to see a Walter Battiss artwork that Rebekah claimed would finally make him the artist he dreamed of becoming. However, he is no master criminal. The story begins when JB Niemand finds himself in prison. At Middledrift Corrections JB Niemand develops a dependent and ambiguous relationship with Stix, a career criminal who will end up abandoning JB in the bush shortly after their escape from prison. Stix's betrayal catalyses JB's becoming and he is propelled into a journey that sees him attempting to join a gang of hill bandits who call themselves the Ninevites, drinking in a small town bar in The Settler Flats, and eventually making good on his plans to go to Alice.

In 1990's South Africa, Danny is haunted by the tragic death of his younger brother. When he moves with his parents to a small coastal town at the bottom of the world, he finds Clara, a bright haired girl with her own painful story. Together, they learn to live and love in a world which they seldom understand. Around them forces shape their paths in ways beyond their comprehension, and they must learn to navigate the lies of adults. Their relationship, naïve and pure, plays out in the Eden of their surroundings. When their longing for comfort from their individual pain drives them apart, Danny must decide if the truth will be able to keep them together and set him free. The brooding memory of his brother threatens to pull him apart, and leads him to a startling understanding. The Light by The Sea is a novel of unseen pain, innocent love and the coming of age journey of two young people trying to find the light again.