No description available.

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Includes bibliographical references / Wonderboom (Wondertree) could be considered as a dystopic novel that takes place in a post-apocalyptic era within the South African landscape. It is the time of disillusioned citizens and access to most resources is limited, except for the plutocrats. The result is that the division between the haves and have-nots is more severe than ever before and is particularly evident along the fringes of society. The protagonist, Magriet Vos, is a fifty-year-old violinist whose memory is disintegrating. Due to the fact that she is a regular performer at the ‘court’ of the despotic ruler Albino X, her impending mental incompetence pitches her at a knife’s edge, because when she will no longer be able to master her art, Albino X will have her killed and dispatched to the taxidermist in order to extend his diorama. Further to this, she has virtually no friends or relatives left in the coastal village where she lives, and she is thus compelled to migrate north, back to the Magaliesberg and the last members of her clan. Vos raids her past in a desperate attempt to survive the post-revolutionary wasteland in the hope of arriving ‘home’ safely. The text fluctuates between the territory of memoir and travelogue as the journey progresses and her sense of consciousness starts to dissipate. Aspects of her musical craft, such as rhythm, tone and tempo are synthesised in the structure of the novel. Further to this, careful consideration was given to references to existing texts by particular authors, serving the purpose of either parody or elegy. Vos’ journey commences in Betty’s Bay on the southern coast of South Africa and unfolds through four voices or perspectives: - The main narrator (illuminating the idiosyncratic viewpoint of Magriet Vos) - Magriet’s diary (memoir) - Encyclopedia (endnotes) - Disintegrating photo texts: a series of constructions/collages, which serves as introduction to each chapter and refers to the ‘image sequence’ of the British photographer Eadweard James Muybridge (1830-1904) and which is here applied as dismantling device to allow text and image to dovetail. The tree serves as central metaphor − both as axis in nature and as archaic source of ‘knowledge of good and evil.’

This manuscript 'the way of things' is a collection of poems that, regardless of subject matter, consistently gravitates towards an exploration of the poetics of space. In this regard, it bears a relation to the theoretical work done by Gaston Bachelard, but it also stands in relation to tradition in 20th Century poetry which deals with objects (usually of the most ordinary sort), the relation of human beings to such objects and the way such objects cast into relief certain aspects of the human condition. Whether the poems touch on a love affair, whether they describe a still life or whether they explore a metaphysical longing, their poetics is drawn from their attempt to define a space and its presence on human lives. Thus, the way of things takes its place in a long lineage of conceptual poetry and is an attempt to add to that lineage. And although the poems might appear to be primarily conceptual, this only reveals the extent to which concepts themselves can have deeply emotional and indeed lyrical implications.

Includes bibliographical references. / Lindanathi Mda works a dead end job at a video store and runs an operation selling ARV's with his friends, Carmichael and Linireaux. He is tormented by the memory of having contributed to his younger brother Luthando's death. He lives a life of evasion, taking drugs and a substance called Industrial in Cape Town's suburbs, until he receives a message from Bhut' Vuyo, Luthando's step-father, which reminds him of a promise he made to their family eight years ago. While old wounds resurface, Lindanathi is faced with the decision of continuing a life of evasion or returning home and facing the responsibility that comes with everything he left behind. "The Reactive' is a novel that seeks to explore the implications of an increasingly technologized society coming to a head with more traditionally based ideas of place and identity, as well as the idea of forming a "self" based on an unreliable memory, and a continually compromised process of mentation, due to the proliferation of ephemeral media forms and chemical abuse.

Includes bibliographical references.

The retrospective story of a white middle-aged woman in South Africa born in the late 1950s, the novel traces, amongst other things, the development of her political consciousness from her early years as the daughter of a farmer in the Kalahari. Being a so-called 'little history' the story relates her exposure to other races during a time of strict division, important incidents such as a visit by the notorious Hendrik Verwoerd, the deaths of family members, a move to the Western Cape and the effects of growing up in a sternly Nationalist and Calvinistic household. The novel strives to portray the life of a woman locked into the constraints of a society burdened with restrictions, but who always keeps a keen and wary eye on 'homeland' policies, the expat generation, motherhood and life in Africa, etc., always filtered through the precarious discourse of whiteness.

No description available.

No description available.

The novel is divided into three sections, a few days at a three times in an 18-year relationship. Part One is set in June 1976. A dissolute couple is flying home from Europe to Johannesburg. Elsa, who has concealed sexual contraband, is nervous. Her irascible husband, Derk, is drunk; plagued by impotence, shortness of breath, existential angst and a creeping sense of failure. Despite his success as a creative director for an international advertising agency, his overweening ambition – to become an immortal poet – will at best be realised posthumously. Home is an apartment in the tallest residential building in the world. The couple has a 16-year-old son, Paul whose daily routine and whereabouts go largely unnoticed by his parents. Each of the characters is essentially lonely. The discovery of a long-lost uncle produces a period of self-reflection for Derk. He briefly pauses his dogged search for sexual gratification, but any realisation is distorted through the prism of his narcissism. Elsa, seeking companionship and a home, is increasingly reluctant to service Derk’s voyeuristic demands; the barrenness of life in the concrete jungle of Hillbrow is mirrored in their relationship. Paul’s ability to develop deep or loyal relationships is stunted by their emotional neglect. Within the myopia of this dysfunctional white South African family, the catastrophic events unfolding in South Africa are incidental. In Part Two, set in more sedate 1960, we meet recently wedded Elsa and Derk. Derk is deeply in love with Elsa, and both are ecstatic with the promise of life together. They fly to Cape Town for a reunion dinner with Derk’s brother, Gabriel, his wife, Alice and Elsa’s parents. The weekend is an unmitigated disaster; the seeds of their future discontent sown within the same time period in which the Sharpeville massacre took place. In the final section, set in 1978, Elsa has finally found the courage to leave Derk and started her own business venture. A chronically angry Paul is enrolled in the army that is making cross-border raids into Angola. Having cynically destroyed all the relationships that were dear to him, Derk tries one last time to salvage the one he feels is worth living for. The insidious nature of abuse that leaves no physical trace is a central theme. The cycle that allows it to take root and how it flourishes in isolation – of a nation, a community, a family – and leads to dysfunction. The dawning economic emancipation of women in the second half of the 20th century, as seen in the growing independence of the main character, Elsa, is another trope. Set within times of historic change in South Africa to which the characters – so wrapped up in their personal dramas – seem bizarrely inured, it seeks to show that an oppressive society harms even those individuals it prefers and privileges. And that love and hope, as always, redeem