South African readers have always had access to a cornucopia of books from abroad, but the proportion of new books available in any one month contains an increasing number of books published in this country.
May is Exclusive Books’ annual Homebru campaign, when the spotlight is on the homegrown voices defining the SA literary landscape.
“South Africans have always had a way with words, and while meanings may differ, we understand each other all the same,” said a spokesperson for the book chain.
“That why this year’s Homebru campaign is a celebration of words: the unique and quintessentially SA words that bring us together, help us express ourselves and give us an avenue to tell our story.”
There are 58 books in the 2024 Homebru catalogue, ranging from fiction and nature books to poetry, current affairs and children’s reads.
To see the full selection, visit the Exclusive Books website. But here are a few of the Homebru books sent to me. – Vivien Horler
Place – South African Literary Journeys, by Justin Fox (Umuzi)
Olive Schreiner’s Karoo, Sir Percy Fitzpatrick’s lowveld, Herman Charles Bosman’s Marico, Dalene Matthee’s Knysna forest, Zakes Mda’s Wild Coast and Stephen Watson’s Cederberg – these are among the places travel writer Justin Fox explores.
A former editor of Getaway magazine, Fox goes on a series of magnificent journeys around our country and into the landscapes that inspired generations of South African writers.
He has chosen landscapes that are still wild and largely unspoilt, and writes: “My choice of literary works is all about places of the heart, both for the authors and myself. The selection is personal, reflecting my own literary and literal geographies… In each instance, setting is no mere backdrop but an integral part of the work and a reflection of the author’s heart-land.”
This is, he says, a book about a series of journeys around SA, “with an old kitbag of books instead of maps to guide us”.
How to Fix (and unf*ck) a Country – Six things to reboot South Africa, by Roy Havemann (Jonathan Ball Publishers)
Roy Havemann has consulted to the SA Presidency, the Treasury, the World Bank and private companies. He joined the national Treasury in 2002, eventually becoming former Finance Minister Tito Mboweni’s speechwriter. (Which makes me wonder who actually wrote Mboweni’s foreword…)
In his introduction Havemann says some countries are stable and prosperous, while others are failed states. But none of this is destiny. History is full of examples of countries that have pulled themselves out of – or got into – a hole.
He points out that once successful countries like Argentina, are successful no longer. North Korea, with plenty of natural resources, is poor. South Korea, which has no minerals and a relatively small population, is among the richest places in the world.
Havemann says there are six priorities – things we could do practically to get us moving in the right direction, all beginning with the letter “E”: Eskom, Education, Environment, Exports, Equality and an Ethical and Effective state.
In a brief shout on the cover, News24’s respected business journalist Carol Paton says: “This book will make you smarter. Packed with lively anecdotes and lessons from history, economics, and the world, [it] explains the hole South Africa is in how we can climb out.”
As Mboweni says in his foreword: “This book aims to create a conversation. My hope is that it stimulates a discussion on growth. We need it.”
Bullsh!t – 50 fibs that made South Africa, by Jonathan Ancer (Jonathan Ball Publishers)
What is it with books that employ swear words in their titles and then don’t have the courage of their convictions but coyly hide behind an asterisk or an exclaimation mark, like Scope magazine’s topless models and their strategically placed stars.
In my opinion, if you want to say bullshit, or fuck, just say it. The asterisks fool no one.
Right, rant over.
Jonathan Ancer, a quirky and clever former colleague has written an intriguing book about the lies that some or all of us believe.
The first he picks at is the 1994 election, which was, he says, “an agreed fiction”.
Organising the first democratic election was an impossible task for the brand new IEC. They had no voters’ roll and just four months to do it all.
Ancer quotes the political scientist Professor Steven Friedman who in 1994 headed the IEC’s information analysis department. He says a lot of the 1994 results were absurd, especially in KwaZulu-Natal.
“For example, by any credible population estimate, in some voting stations you had 800% of the adult population voting. The whole thing was dodgy.”
Before election day, Friedman wrote a paper on what would constitute a fair and free election, and said there was a single major criterion: whether the losers accepted the results.
“It’s a legitimacy issue. If the losers accept the results, then does it matter if five votes go astray here or there?”
He believes if the IEC had been purist about the results, conflict would have been inevitable. “In my view, it was not a lie but a ‘negotiated truth’ or an ‘agreed fiction’.”
The historian Bill Nasson says in his foreword: “Combining journalist raciness with a magpie mind and an alligator’s nose for a swamp, Ancer is a shrewd recorder and interpreter of SA’s steaming pile of follies, crimes, misfortunes and absurdities.”
Prescription: Ice Cream – A doctor’s journey to discover what matters, by Alastair McAlpine (Macmillan)
This is an interesting and even inspiring book which I’m not going into detail about here as it will be the subject of the Sunday book review on May 26 on The Books Page.
Among the other books in the Homebru catalogue are Margie Orford’s vulnerable Love and Fury, Ivan Vladislavic’s The Near North, and Graham Coetzer’s Hunting with the Hawks, all three of which have been either reviewed or mentioned in previous weeks of The Books Page.