A compelling personal account of living through the atrocities as Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, whilst bringing up a family on a farm amidst the chaos. As a trained nurse, newly married to the son of the Governor of Rhodesia during the UDI years, Susan writes compellingly about bringing up a family on their farm in Matabeleland in the midst of the unfolding terror and growing number of atrocities. Above all it is a human story. Sometimes shocking and always moving, there is also warmth and humour as Susan creates a gripping picture of the conflict and tells of her family’s survival when many of her friends and neighbouring farmers didn’t. The book is a testament to the courage displayed by so many people who were tested day after day by almost unimaginable horrors.
As a trained nurse, newly married to the son of the Governor of Rhodesia during the UDI years, Susan writes compellingly about bringing up a family on their farm in Matabeleland in the midst of the unfolding terror and growing number of atrocities. Above all it is a human story. Sometimes shocking and always moving, there is also warmth and humour as Susan creates a gripping picture of the conflict and tells of her family's survival when many of her friends and neighbouring farmers didn't. The book is a testament to the courage displayed by so many people who were tested day after day by almost unimaginable horrors. The Litany Bird is the popular name of the Nightjar, a largely nocturnal bird found throughout southern Africa. Its haunting call sounds like 'Good Lord, Deliver Us.'
P.R. Anderson’s second collection – which as an unfinished manuscript shared the 2003 Sanlam Literary Award – announced his arrival as a fresh and significant voice in South African poetry. Republished now for the first time in over a decade, Foundling’s Island’s journey of coasts, creatures and dreams is as tightly crafted and joyously readable as it has ever been. A collection in which form is created and meaning maintained with the lightest of touches, to the greatest effect.
"Since February 2000 nothing has been normal or predictable about Zimbabwe but one thing has been constant and that is the shortwave radio broadcast at 7pm every night from London. For the last thirteen years, since the 19th December 2001, SW Radio Africa has been our nightly companion. Through bouts of deliberate jamming and interference; often by candle, torch or firelight and with solar powered, battery or wind up radios, we have followed them as they have told our story for us, been our voice to the world. Many of us who have followed SW Radio Africa listened with tears in our eyes to their first broadcast thirteen years ago. By that time we had been a country in deep crisis for 22 months: farms were being violently grabbed every day; people were on the run everywhere; torture, terror, burning and looting were daily occurrences; political violence was widespread and anyone involved or supporting opposition politics was in danger and under attack. In the week before the first SW Radio Africa broadcast four men were brutally murdered in political violence; their names, and their sacrifice for Zimbabwe, have not been forgotten: Trymore Midzi (Bindura), Titus Nheya (Karoi), Milton Chambati (Magunge) and Laban Chiweta (Bindura). At the end of their first broadcast on the 19th December 2001 SW Radio Africa closed with a message, sung by and for Zimbabweans: ‘hold on just a little bit longer.’ We are still trying to hold on but it was with great sadness this week to hear SW Radio Africa make the announcement we so dreaded. Station Manager Gerry Jackson said that their short wave radio broadcasts would end on Friday the 18th of July. Gerry thanked Zimbabweans for being such loyal supporters, for sharing their stories and bringing SW Radio Africa into their homes for thirteen years. Zimbabwe will never forget SW Radio Africa or any of their staff whose voices have retold our horror stories, lived with us through our anguish and cried with us at each inhumanity. I have been proud to have had my letters from Zimbabwe read on SW Radio Africa for the last thirteen years; it has been a humbling experience. My second book containing an edited collection of those letters is now in print. ‘Millions, billions, trillions’ tells the story of Zimbabwe from 2005 to February 2009. It was a time of madness that most of us would rather forget but it is a part of us and of our history."--Publisher website.
'Fans of Alexander McCall Smith will love Scotty Elliott's Sibanda series. . . Sunday Times When a gruesomely vulture-mutilated corpse is found in the Park near Thunduluka Lodge, DI Jabulani Sibanda - a hard-boiled, bush-loving, instinctive crime fighter - is on the case. With Sibanda are his sidekicks: Sergeant Ncube, an overweight, digestively challenged, severally married angler and mechanical genius, and Miss Daisy, an ancient, truculent and eccentric Land Rover that is the bane of Sibanda's life and the love of Ncube's. Sibanda and Ncube pursue the investigation in the African bush following the mysterious clues they found at the crime scene: tyre tracks, a knife inscribed with the letter 'B', and a sliver of blue metallic car paint... Praise for Sibanda and the Rainbird: 'Fans of Alexander McCall Smith will love Scotty Elliott's Sibanda series . . . They have the same dry humour and warmth as the No1 Ladies' Detective Agency stories, the same palpable affection for the people and the landscape, and detectives who solve crimes more by hunch and legwork than with forensics and technology' Sunday Times (SA) 'Her plot keeps readers guessing right to the end, when the monster meets a truly satisfying fate . . . Elliott's skill as a writer lies in her ability to create and flesh out characters that are so lifelike, they thrum in your head for days after finishing her books' Business Live 'Will have you hooked' The Gremlin
Bwana Kakuli is the true story of a spoiled young woman who meets the man of her dreams and follows him to wildest Africa. Spanning over 70 years, it is a story of adventure, passion, humour, courage and of a deep love, for both her man and the wilds. Told in her own words, this book relates how difficult it must have been to adapt to this new life and to become subservient to a man like Kakuli. The humorous escapades with strange creatures, as well as the encounters with some of Africa's most dangerous animals, make this book well worth reading.
In this quite extraordinary sequence of poems, P.R. Anderson discombobulates and re-assembles the image and idiom of the various nations, landscapes and earthscapes of central South Africa. From first peoples, to those who took and settled on their ancestral lands, and to those for whom that land would come ancestral, In a Free State encompasses and compresses centuries of human drama into a fleeting and temperamental poetic narrative. Yet this is no drudge, nor is it a historical yarn. With an easy mastery of form and metre, coupled with swashbuckling metaphorical and -textual flourish, Anderson’s new “music” is a bold and visionary work. A piece of South African poetry – and South African storytelling – unlike any other
