Umuzi imprint: 97 books

“Jy is te naby aan die water,” fluister Paul. “Babers slaap in die modder. Hulle sal wakker word as jy op hulle trap.” Paul en Dominique se sorgelose kinderdae op ’n Vrystaatse plaas is vir ewig verby wanneer hul ouers se linkse politiek die skoollewe op die dorp ontmoontlik maak. Hulle...

In 2003 Sihle Khumalo decided to give up a lucrative job and a comfortable life style in Durban and to celebrate his 30th birthday by crossing the continent from south to north. Celebrating life with gusto and in inimitable style, he describes a journey fraught with discomfort, mishap, ecstasy, disillusionment,...

"The clerk of the court called all rise as judge Blignaut swept in dressed in his black gown. He sat down, and moments later we rose again as he swept out, having pronounced the verdict. 'The clerk handed [my lawyer] a copy of the judgment. I received my own copy by e-mail that afternoon. [My...

150 years separate two explorers of Africa: the Englishman John Hanning Speke and South African Sihle Khumalo. Speke set out to “discover” the source of the Nile, and Khumalo to fi gure out what the hell Speke and men like him were after. Khumalo’s 2008 journey to Central Africa was not without...

Antjie Krog’s iconic status as one of South Africa's most popular and critically-acclaimed poets began when she was eighteen, with her first collection, Dogter van Jefta (1970). Almost four decadeslater, this very different collection will confirm her reputation with poems that blur and ravage the...

“I've been craving the road for some time,” writes Justin Fox – odd words for this most seasoned of travel writers. But there is more to it: “Restless, anxious about an uneventful slide into my late 30s ...” And thus begins ten thousand kilometres around the edge of the Republic. Hugging...

Napoleon Bones police dog, gourmet, Cape Town crime fighter. Not your average pavement special. Aside from being a culinary expert and a thinking woman’s companion, he’s one half of an all-rescues K9 unit tasked to help track down the notorious Blackjacks gang. Their search takes Bones and his...

“They sit in the doors of the Big Mamma Pumas, feet dangling out, all gung ho. Sometimes you have a bad hair day in the big fat sky – come back with holes in you.” First nothing happens, on the border between Namibia and Angola, 1983. A platoon of servicemen at a remote outpost kill time smoking,...

Vastrap. Our very own nuclear testing site, so far into the desert that the Russians and the Americans don’t even have a clue about it. You don’t mess with an Afrikaner, not if you don’t want to get a proper klap. An unauthorised nuclear blast beyond belief at Vastrap Airbase outside Upington...

Thirty-one new writers make their debut in The Ghost-Eater and Other Stories, a collection compiled by Diane Awerbuck and edited by Louis Greenberg. Funny and sad and highly original, the stories in The Ghost-Eater and Other Stories are invested with the passion, truth and quirkiness of the newest...

“Someone has to pay.” Jeremy Hlungwani has a gun and an unquenchable violent thought has lodged in his mind. Today he will drive his luxury car from his big-shot job and life in the suburbs to his childhood home in Meadowlands, Soweto. Along the way he will recall the moments in his life that...

Yusuf Carrim has made it in New York. His tech-savvy coverage of the Arab Spring saw his journalism career skyrocket. But when his wealthy father asks him to help look for Sam, a missing family friend, he must return to South Africa. Yusuf’s search takes him to places he could never have imagined....

When Amal vanishes without a trace, Malak not only inherits her sister’s wedding but also her fiancé and her house. It is an inconvenient convenience, which Malak and Taj endure as if they are keeping the slot open for the day Amal walks back through the front door. Amal, however, keeps them waiting....

It is 1993. South Africa is on the brink of total transformation and in Walmer Estate, a busy suburb on the slopes of Devil’s Peak, fourteen-year-old Alia Dawood is about to undergo a transformation of her own. She watches with fascination and fear as the national drama unfolds, longing to be a...