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Now in a cheaper Vintage edition — same pages as as the Penguin edition. André Brink’s fine novel. Ben Du Toit is an ordinary man, a white school teacher in suburban Johannesburg, he has lived his life secure in the belief that the government is fair and benevolent. When a black friend of his is arrested and then “commits suicide” in police custody, his investigations draws Du Toit into a morass of lies, corruption, and officially condoned murder. His quest for the truth costs Du Toit his job, family and friends, but it earns him a newfound commitment to justice in a radically unjust society. “André Brinks vidunderlige bog om Sydafrika ... et ganske fremragende udgangspunkt for diskussion.” (COB Handelsskolen)(362 standard pages)
Level: A/B

A novel by Nadine Gordimer. Paul Bannerman, an ecologist in South Africa, believes he understands his life — his vocation, his marriage etc. But when he is diagnosed with thyroid cancer and, after surgery, prescribed treatment that will leave him radioactive and for a period a danger to others, the fragility of his new existence makes him begin to question his life for the first time. He moves in with his parents to protect his wife and young son from radiation and as he recuperates in the garden of his childhood home, he enters a process that will irrevocably change not only his life but the lives of his wife and parents. He is especially struck by the contradiction in values between his work as a conservationist and that of his wife Benni, an advertising agency executive. His mother is transformed by the strange state of her son's existence to face her own past. Meanwhile, projects to build a nuclear reactor and drain vital wetlands preoccupy Paul as if he were at work. When he recovers his parents go to Mexico to fulfill the archaeological vocation his businessman father Adrian sacrificed to support his family. (187 pages)
Level: A+/Especially mature students/Reading groups

Gods and Soldiers captures the remarkable renaissance in African writing today:

With stories from northern Arabic-speaking to southern Zulu-speaking writers, this collection conveys thirty different ways of approaching what it means to be African. It features recent short stories, novel extracts and some nonfiction by 30 authors. Whether about life in the new urban melting pots of Cape Town and Luanda, or amid the battlefield chaos of Zimbabwe and Somalia, or set in the imaginary surreal landscapes born out of the oral storytelling tradition, these stories represent a striking cross section of new African writing. Each piece finds a human story to illuminate the continent's history of plight and promise, for instance Helon Habila's breathtaking tale of a political prisoner forced to write poems for the prison superintendent's girlfriend ... or a scene from Ngugi wa Thong'o's novel Wizard of the Crow depicting an Orwellian celebration for an unnamed ruler. Editor: Rob Spillman. Click on “Flere oplysninger” to see the Table of Contents. (336 pages)
Level: Gymnasiet

Nelson Mandela, the first African politician to acquire a world following, remains in the 21st century an iconic figure. What are the sources of his almost mythic appeal? Did Mandela deliberately create the status of political hero that he now enjoys? This highly praised biography examines these questions in detail. It presents a range of fresh insights about the shaping of Mandela's personality and public persona, from his childhood days and early activism, through his long years of imprisonment, to his presidency of the new South Africa. The book emphasizes the interplay between Mandela's public career and his private world and shows how his heroic status was a product both of his leading position within the anti-apartheid movement and of his own deliberate efforts to supply a form of quasi-messianic leadership for that movement. Mandela's huge international appeal is described as a compelling and unusual cocktail: of the sacred and the secular — of traditional African values and global media savvy — and of human vulnerablilty, interwoven with the grand narrrative of liberation. Author: Tom Lodge (274 pages)
Level: Gymnasiet/Library/Depot

Contents: 1. Childhood and Upbringing;  2. Becoming a Notable;  3. Volunteer-in-Chief;  4. Making a Messiah;  5. Trials;  6. Prisoner 466/64;  7. Leading from Prison;  8. Messianic Politics and the Transition to Democracy;  9. Embodying the Nation

This chronologically arranged collection of stories traces a rich inheritance. Beginning with San/Bushmen and African oral tales, first collected and translated in the mid-19th century, the selection concludes in the new 21st century, in a post-apartheid, globalising South Africa.

Acknowledged talents of the past like Olive Schreiner, Pauline Smith, Herman Charles Bosman, C Louis Leipoldt and Alan Paton share the pages with writers of the present day: Nadine Gordimer, Es’kia Mphahlele, Hennie Aucamp, Ahmed Essop, Njabulo S Ndebele, Peter Wilhelm, Sindiwe Magona, Marlene van Niekerk, and Ivan Vladislavić, among them. Translations ensure representation in English of South Africa’s cultural diversity.

This diversity is reflected in the storytelling imagination — the oral tale — the colonial yarn — the “shebeen” sketch — the story of irony and implication. The apartheid landscape yields to the current challenges of a society re-inventing itself to retell its story. Editor: Michael Chapman. (868 pages)
Level: Gymnasiet/Library/Depot

The Pulitzer Prize winning play by black New York playwright Lynn Nottage, set in present-day Africa:

How do you dramatize distant, gruesome political realities? In Ruined Lynn Nottage depicts the horrific toll sexual violence has taken on women in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She balances unspeakably awful facts with the ordinary, and even hopeful in a way that increases the emotionally wrenching effect.
Mama Nadi owns a bar and poolroom staffed by waitresses who provide more than whiskey and food. It's located in a mining town, where demand for tin has escalated a brutal power struggle between various factions. Mama Nadi, a survivor and opportunist, caters not just to the miners, but to soldiers of whichever faction enters her premises. She runs a cozy little whorehouse — one of the cleanest and safest places in the area — and she’s determined to keep it that way. No bullets, no brawling, no unwashed hands and no talk of the civil war raging outside. Her determined impartiality and strict rule about guns being emptied by all who enter her little kingdom, has enabled her to control what goes on within her house, if not what happens beyond its front door. But will Mama be able to stay neutral forever? Menace overhangs life in the bar, and intensifies every time customers arrive. For the young women working here, whoring is nice work, compared with what they experienced before. Inspite of her neutrality Mama cannot remain emotionally uninvolved with the damaged girls who work for her — especially Sophie who is a victim not just of rape but mutilation, which gives her the bad luck status of a ruined girl. Lyrical written this powerful play is based on extensive interviews with Congolese women. (126 pages)
Level: 2nd and 3rd years of the Gymnasium/B-A