Jabulani Means Rejoice is a dictionary comprised of hundreds of African names in local South African languages, meticulously assembled and expounded upon for the curious reader. Names are listed in alphabetical order with gender indications, as well as information regarding their ethnographic origins and meanings. Yet, Jabulani Means Rejoice is so much more than simply a list of names and their meanings. The author skilfully interweaves cultural context and history, including issues surrounding naming rituals, domestic disputes and the curse of the evil eye. As a reference work, the book stands as an invaluable contribution to the growing interest in African cultural history. With its names ranging from the traditional to the unconventional, it will appeal to linguists, family historians and anyone with an interest in names.
Jabulani gets stuck in the mud and no matter how hard the other elephants try, they cannot free him. Will Jabulani be saved before he dies of hunger and thirst?
This book provides an accessible introduction to the Therapeutic Spiral Model in practice, describing how it works, its relationship with classical psychodrama, neurobiology, experiential psychotherapy and clinical psychology, how it differs from other experiential methods and how it has been used with diverse populations and in different cultures.
“Theatre is not part of our vocabulary”: Sipho Sepamla's provocation in 1981, the year of famous anti-apartheid play Woza Albert!, prompts the response, yes indeed, it is. A Century of South African Theatre demonstrates the impact of theatre and other performances-pageants, concerts, sketches, workshops, and performance art-over the last hundred years. Its coverage includes African responses to pro-British pageants celebrating white Union in 1910, such as the Emancipation Centenary of the abolition of British colonial slavery in 1934 organized by Griffiths Motsieloa and HIE Dhlomo, through anti-apartheid testimonial theatre by Athol Fugard, Maishe Maponya, Gcina Mhlophe, and many others, right up to the present dramatization of state capture, inequality and state violence in today's unevenly democratic society, where government has promised much but delivered little. Building on Loren Kruger's personal observations of forty years as well as her published research, A Century of South African Theatre provides theoretical coordinates from institution to public sphere to syncretism in performance in order to highlight South Africa's changing engagement with the world from the days of Empire, through the apartheid era to the multi-lateral and multi-lingual networks of the 21st century. The final chapters use the Constitution's injunction to improve wellbeing as a prompt to examine the dramaturgy of new problems, especially AIDS and domestic violence, as well as the better known performances in and around the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Kruger critically evaluates internationally known theatre makers, including the signature collaborations between animator/designer William Kentridge, and Handspring Puppet Company, and highlights the local and transnational impact of major post-apartheid companies such as Magnet Theatre.
This book considers the key critical interventions on short story writing in South Africa written in English since the year 2000. The short story genre, whilst often marginalised in national literary canons, has been central to the trajectory of literary history in South Africa. In recent years, the short story has undergone a significant renaissance, with new collections and young writers making a significant impact on the contemporary literary scene, and subgenres such as speculative fiction, erotic fiction, flash fiction and queer fiction expanding rapidly in popularity. This book examines the role of the short story genre in reflecting or championing new developments in South African writing and the ways in which traditional boundaries and definitions of the short story in South Africa have been reimagined in the present. Drawing together a range of critical interventions, including scholarly articles, interviews and personal reflective pieces, the volume traces some of the aesthetic and thematic continuities and discontinuities in the genre and sheds new light on questions of literary form. Finally, the book considers the place of the short story in twenty-first century writing and interrogates the ways in which the short story form may contribute to, or recast ideas of, the post-apartheid or post-transitional. The perfect guide to contemporary short story writing in South Africa, this book will be essential reading for researchers of African literature.
Fractured Lives is a memoir of one womans experiences as a documentary filmmaker covering the wars in southern Africa during the 1980s and 1990s. Part autobiography, part history, part social commentary and part war story, it offers a female perspective on a traditionally male subject. Growing up in South Africa in a politically active family, Toni went to Britain as an exile in 1965 in the wake of the famous Rivonia Trial, and in the years to follow, became a filmmaker. Despite constant difficulties fighting for funding and commissions from television broadcasters, and the prejudices of working in a male-dominated industry, Toni made several remarkable films in Mozambique and Angola. These bear witness to the silent victims of war, particularly the women and children. Fractured Lives paints the changing landscape of southern Africa: Namibian independence and the end of the war in Mozambique bring hope but also despondency. Yet there is also the possibility of redemption, of building new lives for the victims of war. In its final chapters, Fractured Lives traces the power of survival and the opportunities for new beginnings. Fractured Lives concludes with Tonis return to South Africa after nearly three decades in exile. However, the joy following the demise of apartheid is tempered by the poignancy of returning to a place that for so long had existed in her dreams alone and the realization that home will forever lie somewhere else.
Side with the English? Never! The sibling rivalry between brothers Pierre and Jan Rousseau escalates when the Smuts Government declares war on Nazi Germany. Pierre, the charming extrovert, chooses the more glamorous option, heading Up North with the Air Force but his equally good-looking rightwing brother Jan joins the militant wing of the Ossewa Brandwag. The story tracks their adventures during the conflict, reaching a climax when Pierre survives a spell on the loose in Italy and returns home. It portrays the deep division World War II created between groups and individuals in South Africa and the life-changing impact it had on many lives. Youll be fascinated as you follow the brothers hairy and often romantic adventures. I enjoyed being reminded of the complex nature of war and especially the disastrous consequences of limited access to information had for the world at large. Its hard to imagine in this day and age of tweeting and instant messaging that there were times when people sincerely didnt know the truth before it was too late. (Wir haben nicht gewusst!) Amelia de Vaal, editor and literary translator
Catching a snake in the dorm, being a mother to fifty girls, bartering in the marketplace, handing out food to villagers during the drought, being “bit” by a cheetah, coping with homesickness, and climbing Mount Kilimanjaro were just some of the adventures and challenges Valerie faced as a student missionary at Maxwell Adventist Academy in Kenya. What Valerie didn’t expect during her year abroad was how much she fell in love with her adopted country and how difficult it was to adjust to life once she came back to the States. It’s Worth the Sacrifice chronicles her student missionary (SM) experience and offers advice to those interested in going overseas. Valerie hopes that what she learned will help other SMs while serving and during re-entry.
The fifth and final book in the heart-warming White Giraffe series by Lauren St John, featuring the African adventures of Martine and her magical white giraffe. Martine is starstruck when her boyband hero visits Sawubona for a safari. But within hours, poachers have pounced, leaving behind an orphaned rhino calf. Martine and Ben are entrusted with taking the baby rhino to a remote sanctuary. But Martine has a guilty secret - one that's stolen her healing gift. Alone in the wilderness, with the poachers closing in, Martine and Ben need all of the survival skills they possess to save one of the most endangered animals on earth.
