Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grand‒father
by Gao Xingjian
(Harper Perennial)
In the title story, the author, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2000, longs for his childhood village, now asphalted over, and his grandfather, who made fishing rods of bamboo. It is one of six stories written between 1989 and 1996, but only translated into English last year. Gao Xingjian is a master of the evocative, whether describing the plight of a swimmer gripped by cramp far from shore in a freezing sea, an odd sort of accident on a busy urban road, or the joy of a couple climbing up a hill in rural China to see a deserted temple.
The Mermaid Chair
by Sue Monk Kidd
(Review)
Jessie Sullivan has been married half her life and has become accustomed to her role. But when she returns to the isolated island she grew up on to establish why her mother has been behaving oddly, she finds a lot more than she came looking for.
My Sister’s Keeper
by Jodi Picoult
(Hodder & Stoughton)
Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age 13, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions and shots so that her sister, Kate, can fight the leukaemia that has plagued her since she was a child. Anna was born for this purpose, her parents tell her, which is why they love her even more. But she can’t help but long for control over herself, and decides to sue her parents for the rights to her own body. A ”richly layered drama”, said People magazine.
The Promise of Happiness
by Justin Cartwright
(Bloomsbury)
The Judds, formerly of London N1, now scattered, are about to be thrown together again by the release of their eldest child, Juliet, from prison. The collision will cause sparks to fly. Now in paperback, this novel was described as ”extraordinarily bold”.
The Shadow of the Wind
by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
Hidden in the heart of the old city of Barcelona is the Cemetery of Lost Books, a labyrinthine library of obscure and forgotten titles. Here 10-year-old Daniel, one morning in 1945, finds a book by the mysterious Julian Carax — a discovery that will haunt Daniel’s life and end in a race against time. A literary thriller in the tradition of The Name of the Rose.
The Virgin’s Lover
by Philippa Gregory
(HarperCollins)
Elizabeth I has ascended to the throne of England, but she is surrounded by advisers convinced that they know what’s best for the country — and her. Elizabeth can rely on just one man, Robert Dudley. As the pressure grows for Elizabeth to marry, her preference is clear, but he is unavailable. What if the unthinkable were to happen …
JAIL BIRDS AND OTHERS
by Muthal Naidoo
(Botsotso)
A collection of stories dealing chiefly with the lives of South Africans, often South -Africans of Indian extraction, looking especially at the complexities faced by ordinary women in a society of diverse cultures.
Fags and Lager
by Charlie Williams
(Serpent’s Tail)
You don’t mess with a feller like Royston Blake, head doorman of Hoppers — heart of Magels’ beery underbelly. He’s killed before and he’ll kill again, but only if a feller deserves it like. Things are changing, though, and Blake’s limited understanding of the world is turned on its head. An uncomfortable and violent commentary on a dying British town, with a liberal sprinkling of wit and humane insights.
Croatian Nights: A Festival of Alternative Literature
edited by Borivoj Radakovic, Matt Thorne and Tony White
(Serpent’s Tail)
A surreal collection of short stories by Croatian and British authors sharing – ”a fondness of hard drinking and a contempt for regular employment”. Interesting and unlike -anything you’ve read before.
A LONG WAY DOWN
by Nick Hornby
(Penguin)
One New Year’s Eve, on the rooftop of Topper’s House, four people meet accidentally: all were planning to jump to their deaths. But, perhaps, they decide in a new pact, there might be things they can find to make life worth living. ”Only Hornby could make a book about suicide hilarious and smart,” said the Houston Chronicle.
Faithful
by Davitt Sigerson
(Serpent’s Tail)
Cool, calculated commentary on sex, love, infidelity and parenting set in a contemporary world where the old rules are obsolete and new ones haven’t yet been formulated.
THE EMPOWERED NATIVE
by Letepe Maisela
(Sizwe)
Lerumo is a graduate of the Soweto Class of 1976, back from exile as a now ”empowered native”. At the age of 32, having dealt with exile, the refugee camps of Botswana and Zambia, and having acquired a degree in Russia, he has come home to pick up the pieces of his life. But that is not to be …
REBEL ANGEL
by Robin Malan
(Junkets)
The young John Keats studies for six years to be a doctor, then decides he wants to be a poet — only to find himself dismissed as a Cockney upstart. His sunny disposition and roistering lifestyle keep his spirits up, and at long last success and love seem within his grasp. And then tragedy strikes. A vivid and moving account of the young Keats.
SAVING THE WORLD AND BEING HAPPY
by R Eric Swanepoel
(Publish Britannica)
The life of Nathaniel Papoulos, from lovelorn schoolboy and computer nerd to head of a global movement. Described as ”No Logo meets The World According to Garp”, this quirky novel is a political satire as well as a romance.
COLOURED HILL
by Verenia Keet
(Keet)
Set in the period from the 1960s to the 1980s, in a changing South Africa, this novel traces the story of a coloured family fighting against apartheid (yet caught between black and white), and then into the new era and the new battle against HIV/Aids.
KAROO AND OTHER STORIES
by Athol Fugard
(David Philip)
”I don’t think there has ever been a time when I didn’t have at least half a dozen stories I knew I had to tell sooner or later,” wrote the acclaimed playwright in his notebook. Now he has told some of those stories, and this volume collects them alongside key notebook entries.
Windwalker
by Natasha Mostert
(Oshun)
Photojournalist Justine Calloway has just moved into a rundown English manor house. From the first week, she feels a connection to Adam Buchanan, the man who murdered his brother in the grounds nine years previously — and then fled to the Namib. Here he has been writing to the woman he sees in his dreams while, across the ocean, Justine is compelled to photograph the old house. When Adam sees a photograph of the woman living in his old home, he believes she is his destiny and feels compelled to return. Mostert intersperses this partly supernatural, but mostly romantic, tale with odd characters, including a creepy stalker-type parish priest and an over-the-top seal-clubber. Her style is fluid and Windwalker is an intruiging and original story.
The Zahir
by Paulo Coelho
(HarperCollins)
One day a renowned author discovers that his wife, a war correspondent, has disappeared, leaving no trace. Was she kidnapped, blackmailed or simply bored with their marriage? In Arabic, zahir means ”visible, present and unable to go unnoticed”. This state of possession can be either saintliness or insanity, with only a fine line between the two. Spiritual allegory from the worldwide-bestselling author of The Alchemist.
SKINNER’S DRIFT
by Lisa Fugard
(Picador Africa)
After an absence of many years, Eva, a young South African woman, is returning to her home country, and to the farm she grew up on. Interweaved with her present-day experiences are the events of a time gone by, delving back into the traumatic experiences that scarred Eva, her family and those around them. A ”rewarding slow burn of a novel”, said Rachel Hore in The Guardian.
THE KING’S SHILLING
by Hamilton Wende
(Jacana)
In this muscular, very readable historical novel, the author (a foreign correspondent for many years) tells a tale based on the historical presence of South African troops in the East African theatre of war during World War I, and at the Battle of Salaita Hill in 1916, where 133 South Africans were killed. Wende extends this basic narrative into an adventure that is not recorded, but that’s the skill of the writer of historical novels — finding the gaps and filling them with plausible human action. Wende’s characters have some depth, though they are also easily recogniseable types; protagonist Michael Fuller is the novice who learns it all the hard way. The fighting, particularly, is well done; the plot moves briskly along, and the prose steers commendably clear of purple. All in all, this is the kind of solid, straightforward historical novel one would like to see more of from South African writers — and it would be good, too, to see such works knocking Wilbur Smith’s fantasies off the international bestseller lists. — Shaun de Waal