A courageous and compelling journey through the chaotic and hyper-real world of Hillbrow, South Africa.Welcome To Our Hillbrow is an exhilarating and disturbing ride through the contradictory, alluring and painful realities of post-apartheid South Africa. Set in the vibrant and chaotic microcosm of Hillbrow, this novel fearlessly confronts the shattered dreams of youth, the unpredictable costs of sexuality, the specter of AIDS, rampant xenophobia, and the omniprese...

A poignant prequel to the acclaimed bestseller Welcome to Our Hillbrow, showcasing Mpe's immense talent and heart.Brooding Clouds is a posthumous collection of short stories and poems that serve as a prequel to Phaswane Mpe's acclaimed bestseller, Welcome to Our Hillbrow. In these thematically linked stories, readers meet the organic roots of the emblematic characters and concerns of the later novel.With an expressive simplicity t...

After the school festival... a big mission commences in the Outer World.Having fended off Elise’s sudden attack, Alus manages to protect the campus festival. As the festival continues, Single Digit Magicmaster Lettie secretly visits the Institute. Of all things, she brings with her the mission to reclaim Vanalis, a place with a dark history. Alus and Loki immediately head out after the festival, but...?

The Nobel Prize–nominated Kenyan writer’s powerful first novelTwo brothers, Njoroge and Kamau, stand on a garbage heap and look into their futures: Njoroge is to attend school, while Kamau will train to be a carpenter. But this is Kenya, and the times are against them: In the forests, the Mau Mau is waging war against the white government, and the two brothers and their family need to decide where their loyalties lie. For the practical Kamau, the choice is simple, ...

Nigel Barley was a 'new anthropologist', one of the younger generation of academi whose learning and research had been acquired in institutes, research departments, from academic journals and university libraries. But after suffering years of gentle put-downs from leathery old field-workers, their 'teeth permanently gritted from years of dealing with natives', he was determined to gain his own experience. The two years he spent among the Dowayo people in the Cameroons (1978-80) produced a ...

A pocket Discworld quote book. Go beyond the novels to discover more about the fantastically funny and gloriously inventive world of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series.‘I’ll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there’s evidence of any thinking going on inside it.’The most quotable writer of our time, Terry Pratchett’s unique brand of wit made him both a bestseller and an enduring, endearing source of modern wisdom. Th...

“The definitive African book of the twentieth century” (Moses Isegawa, from the Introduction) by the Nobel Prize–nominated Kenyan writerThe puzzling murder of three African directors of a foreign-owned brewery sets the scene for this fervent, hard-hitting novel about disillusionment in independent Kenya. A deceptively simple tale, Petals of Blood is on the surface a suspenseful investigation of a spectacular triple murder in upcountry Kenya. Yet as the int...

Ngugi wa Thiong'o was born the fifth child of his father's third wife, in a family that includes twenty-four children born to four different mothers. He spent his 1930s childhood as the apple of his mother's eye, before attending school to slake what is considered a bizarre thirst for learning.As he grows up, the wider political and social changes occurring in Kenya begin to impinge on the boy's life in both inspiring and frightening ways. Through the story of his grandparents and ...

In 1992, a gang leader was shot dead by an ANC member in Kroonstad. The murder weapon was then hidden on Antjie Krog’s stoep. In Begging to Be Black, Krog begins by exploring her position in this controversial case. From there the book ranges widely in scope, both in time - reaching back to the days of Basotho king Moshoeshoe - and in space - as we follow Krog’s experiences as a research fellow in Berlin, far from the Africa that produced her. Begging to Be Black is a book of journeys - mo...

Moving country remains the hugest thing weve ever experienced/ accomplished/ drowned in. Its an act of seemingly utter insanity, which negates all ones most primal connections to the cosmos. I find myself quoting Keats more often, Happiness is sharpened by its antithetical elements. Experiencing a new chapter of life is life-altering and isnt given enough credence. Each day we are grateful to taste a figuratively different menu, yet simultaneously we miss the staple diet stemming from our ...

Celebrating ten years of the leading literary prize for African fiction (dubbed "The African Booker"), 10 Years of the Caine Prize brings together the ten winning stories along with a story each from the four African winners of the Booker Prize: Chinua Achebe, J.M. Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer, and Ben Okri.The ten winners:Leila Aboulela for The MuseumHelon Habila for Love PoemsBinyavanga Wainaina for Discovering HomeYvon...

During the early fifties, Kenya was a country in turmoil. While Ngugi enjoys scouting trips, chess tournaments and reading about Biggles at the prestigious Alliance School near Nairobi, things are changing at home. He arrives back for his first visit since starting school to find his house razed to the ground and the entire village moved up the road closer to a guard checkpoint. Later, his brother, Good Wallace, who fights for the rebels, is captured by the British and taken to a concentra...