The Homebru 2008 list of 25 new and recent books by South African authors is long on politics and current affairs, cookery and adventure, but a little short on literary fiction.
Heavyweight non-fiction includes Jonny Steinberg’s examination of HIV and its effects in the most rural of settings, Three-Letter Plague: A Young Man’s Journey Through a Great Epidemic; Dinner with Mugabe, Heidi Holland’s collection of interviews about Robert Mugabe; and Xolela Mangcu’s To The Brink: The State of Democracy in South Africa.
Politics and food meet and greet in Hilton Little’s memoir of his experiences as personal chef to both Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki, recorded in Bon Appétit, Mr President, a title that certainly owes not a little to the Gabriel Garcia Marquez short story Bon Voyage, Mr President.
Self-declaredly less exalted is Life’s a Beach Cottage by Neil Roake and Sean Laurenz, touted as an ‘unpretentious, eclectic and very tasty” presentation of ‘simple South African and global fare, presented in the idyllic setting of a cottage on the KwaZulu-Natal coast”.
Terrain as unfamiliar to the general reader as political highways and culinary byways is explored in the unambiguously titled In Bushveld and Desert by Christiaan Bakkes, with a companion piece available in his brother Johan’s To Hell and Gone. Sibusiso Vilane recounts what life is like atop the world’s tallest mountains in his autobiography, To the Top from Nowhere.
Culled from 120 titles submitted by South African publishers, the list is perhaps most notable for new work by Damon Galgut (The Impostor), Andre P Brink (Ander Lewens) and the late Phaswane Mpe (Brooding Clouds — see review).
Homebru 2008: The list
Three-Letter Plague: A Young Man’s Journey Through a Great Epidemic by Jonny Steinberg (Jonathan Ball)
Kaalkop 2 by Nataniel (NB Publishers)
Laying Ghosts to Rest: Dilemmas of the Transformation by Mamphela Ramphele (NB Publishers)
To The Brink: The State of Democracy in South Africa by Xolela Mangcu (UKZN Press)
Life’s a Beach Cottage by Neil Roake and Sean Laurenz (Modern Museum)
After Tears by Niq Mhlongo (NB Publishers)
In Bushveld and Desert by Christiaan Bakkes (NB Publishers)
Dinner with Mugabe by Heidi Holland (Penguin)
The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam by Lauren Liebenberg (Penguin)
Stealing Water by Tim Ecott (Sceptre)
Ander Lewens by Andre P Brink (NB Publishers)
To Hell and Gone by Johan Bakkes (NB Publishers)
Bon Appetit, Mr President by Hilton Little (NB Publishers)
The Impostor by Damon Galgut (Penguin)
Tappisserie met Klein Diere by Erika Murray-Theron (NB Publishers)
Brooding Clouds by Phaswane Mpe (UKZN Press)
Some of My Best Friends are White by N Ngcobo (Struik)
POMP by Various Authors (Griffel Media)
My Brother’s Book by Jo-Anne Richards (Picador Africa)
There are Ants in My Sugar by Annica Foxcroft (Faradawn/ Thomas Stein)
The Jews in South Africa: An Illustrated History by Richard Mendelsohn and Milton Shain (Jonathan Ball)
Payback by Mike Nicol (Umuzi)
To the Top from Nowhere by Sibusiso Vilane and Gail Jennings (Aardvark)
Karma Suture by Rosie Kendal (Jacana)
Fine Lines from the Box: Further Thoughts About Our Country by Njabulo S Ndebele (Random House)
Various authors from the Homebru list will speak at Exclusive Books stores countrywide during May. Programme available from Exclusive Books stores or at www.exclusivebooks.com