The English language has proved to be the most globally adaptable of all the “world languages” at the planet’s disposal. For some reason, it seems able to expand to absorb new vocabularies all the time, and it is now correct to speak of “Englishes” rather than one singular English with unbending standards and a self-important sense of its own correctitude. The plurality of this tongue is reflected in the SOUTH AFRICAN CONCISE ENGLISH DICTIONARY (Oxford) [Buy online], which incorporates words in common South African usage into the usual Oxford dictionary format, giving (belated?) metropolitan legitimacy to the way we, as South Africans, have adapted and enlarged the language to suit our own purposes. It may just be a warped kind of linguistic nationalism, but it warms the heart to see words such as “voetsek”, “babalaas”, “moffie” and “jol” in an Oxford dictionary.
In the way of reference books, Oxford also offers the extremely useful Very Short Introductions series. These are small books of 100 to 150 pages, giving swift and sharply written overviews of topics ranging widely from DRUGS to LOGIC, ANIMAL RIGHTS to ISLAM.
American uber-critic Harold Bloom also provides very short introductions to a total of 100 literary thinkers in his vast tome GENIUS (4th Estate) [Buy online]. As Frank Kermode put it, to say there’s only one Harold Bloom is an understatement. This is Bloom’s follow-up to his books The Western Tradition and Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human [Buy online], and this equally compendious volume rushes eccentrically but engagingly through everyone from The Yawhist to Iris Murdoch, Nietzsche to Beckett, and many many more. Bloom’s assessments are idiosyncratic (and organised along Kabbalistic principles — seriously), and sometimes annoying, but always stimulating.
Non-fiction by fiction-writers is always interesting, and two new books should fit the bill for those who want something essayistic alongside the beach novels. Salman Rushdie’s non-fiction pieces from 1992 to 2002 are collected in STEP ACROSS THIS LINE (Jonathan Cape) [Buy online], in which he moves from literature (“In Defence of the Novel, Yet Again”, and his take on what’s wrong with JM Coetzee’s Disgrace) to rock (U2, The Rolling Stones), taking in issues of religion and world politics before and after September 11 2001, and looking back his own “plague years” when he was under fatwa. Jonathan Franzen, who had a huge hit with The Corrections last year, has collected his essays (more on the state of fiction-writing — a fascinating counterpoint to Rushdie’s views) in HOW TO BE ALONE (4th Estate) [Buy online].
More comprehensive and also more personal, insofar as it is autobiographical in structure, is Afrikaans novelist Karel Schoeman’s DIE LAASTE AFRIKAANSE BOEK [Buy online], in which he traces in meticulous detail his own development as a person and a writer. It’s not just inward-looking, though; Schoeman’s sense of his social, political and literary context is impeccable.
As far as biography goes, an essential buy is WALTER AND ALBERTINA SISULU: IN OUR LIFETIMES (New Africa Books) [Buy online]. It’s by their daughter, Elinor Sisulu, who has had unrivalled access to personal and family letters and previously classified documents from the security police and prisons. She tells a moving story of a couple who, in their different ways, have embodied the struggle against injustice and oppression in South Africa.
Another fighter against injustice was Ismail Meer, who died in 2000. His autobiography, A FORTUNATE MAN (Zebra) [Buy online], tells in his own words the story of someone Nelson Mandela described as “a man of great integrity, both in his personal life and his political thinking”.
Hugh Lewin was also involved in that struggle, and his prison memoir, Bandiet, is one of the classics of South African prison literature. Now it has been reissued in a handsome new edition as BANDIET OUT OF JAIL (Random House) [Buy online], with quirky sketches by fellow bandiet Harold “Jock” Strachan and complemented by some moving poetry and other writings, among them a graphic record of the inhuman treatment of the dying Bram Fischer.
Pieter-Dirk Uys has been busy with a different struggle of late — the battle to inform people about HIV/Aids and its dangers. His memoir ELECTIONS AND ERECTIONS (Zebra) takes us from his youth to his incarnation of Evita Bezuidenhout to his consciousness-raising journeys through South Africa [Buy online].
And Evita would surely approve of AFRICAN FEMINISMS II (Agenda), the follow-up to last year’s in-depth investigation of this issue. With events like the sentencing of a Nigerian woman to death by stoning for adultery this year, such a discussion can only be of immense value.
Paul Theroux journeys right down the length of Africa in DARK STAR SAFARI (Penguin), revisiting places he knew as a young man (he was a Peace Corps teacher in Malawi, for instance) [Buy online]. His views are often
controversial, and some of his facts have been questioned, but he is unrivalled as a travel writer.
In STEERING BY THE STARS (Tafelberg), Mamphela Ramphele gives us a portrait of another part of Africa — its youth [Buy online]. Focusing on 16 young South Africans, the former vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town shows us the problems such young people face in today’s South Africa.
One young South African who faced insurmountable odds, yet triumphed in his way, was Nkosi Johnson, perhaps the world’s youngest Aids activist. Jane Fox tells his story, and that of his adoptive mother, in NKOSI’S STORY (Spearhead) [Buy online]. Another African childhood is the focus of CHILD SOLDIER (Jacana), the story of China Keitetsi, who was caught up in horrifying circumstnces during Uganda’s civil war.
Horrifying circumstances are turned into edifying narrative by Jonny Steinberg in MIDLANDS (Jonathan Ball) [Buy online]. The journalist travels to a rural part of KwaZulu-Natal to investigate the events surrounding a farmer’s murder, and comes away with a striking tale of South Africa today. “All South Africans will find this essential reading,” said our critic.
Place such narratives in the context of a larger political picture by reading the updated version of Tom Lodge’s extremely informative overview of Sotuh African politics of the last decade or so, POLITICS IN SOUTH AFRICA: FROM MANDELA TO MBEKI (David Philip) [Buy online]. Or place them in the even broader context of human impact on the environment over many years with SOUTH AFRICA’S ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY, edited by Stephen Dovers, Ruth Edgecombe and Bill Guest (David Philip).
Going back to the past, though still in the “sobering” category, INNOCENT BLOOD by Graham Jooste and Roger Webster (Spearhead) looks at the sad stories of Cape rebels and republican Boers executed by the British during the Anglo-Boer War [Buy online]. Or find out exactly how shattering the defeat of the British army was at the battle of Isandhlwana in ZULU VICTORY by Ron Rock and Peter Quantrell (Greenhill) [Buy online].
After all that, you will need something to lighten the tone, and who better to provide it than maverick Ben Trovato? His letters to famous figures and organisations were a hit last year; with WILL THE REAL BEN TROVATO PLEASE STAND UP? (Jacana) he continues his delightful trouble-making.
Trouble-making was the stock in trade of The Rolling Stones for, oh, say the first decade of their 40-year existence as a band. Now Bill Wyman, the band’s bassist for 30 years, has compiled ROLLING WITH THE STONES (Dorling Kindersley), a huge coffee-table book packed with memorabilia, photographs and information. Every fan will want one [Buy online].
For those in the business and corporate worlds, inspiration is on hand from Andy Andrews and Ted Black. WHO MOVED MY SHARE PRICE? (Jonathan Ball) is an accessible parable that shows how all
employees can learn enough about finance to become first-class, effective managers [Buy online]. Also sure to inspire wannabe captains of industry is IBM CEO Louis V Gerstner Jr’s memoir, WHO SAYS ELEPHANTS CAN’T DANCE? (HarperCollins) [Buy online]. He reveals the tactics he employed to turn the juggernaut of IBM around.
If that’s too inspiring for you, dip into David Bullard’s OUT TO LUNCH (Jonathan Ball), a hand-picked selection of his topical, irreverent, politically incorrect and astute columns from The Sunday Times [Buy online].
Then you can give yourself a complete break from all this stuff about human endeavour and contemplate the real real world in the company of historian Thomas Pakenham, who, with REMARKABLE TREES OF THE WORLD, again enchants with his spectacularly observed images and entertaining text [Buy online].
Otherwise, you could leave reality altogether and try Nanette Adams’s AFTERNOON TEA (STE), which records this extraordinary woman’s conversations with figures from beyond the grave, including Olive Schreiner and Mahatma Gandhi.