Memoirs

An unbelievable, heart-wrenching true story. This is how I can describe McIntosh Polela’s memoir. My Father My Monster covers ministerial spokesperson McIntosh Polela’s life up to…

Whenever Kaizer Chiefs’ supporters reminisce about ‘operation vat allas’, that is the season which the team won every cup competition that was on offer back in 2001. The…

The early 1990s was a time in South Africa that the world knew to be the end of the iniquitous apartheid era and the start of…

If there was Twitter and Facebook back in 1991, Xoliswa Nduneni-Ngema would have trended the whole Friday of December 20th that year and the weekend that followed.…

Ntate Dikgang Moseneke, our deputy chief justice, our freedom fighter, our arbitrator, our law teacher, our father, and our esteemed jurist. Ntate Moseneke is so many…

I am Ndileka-More Than My Surname by Ndileka Mandela gives readers a glimpse into the life of Nelson Mandela’s first grandchild. Ndileka has given us a…

An all rounder’s book: from personal life, professional, relationships and being a Mandela. With or without being a Mandela this was such a good book to read and so relatable, especially as a South African women.

It is befitting that I kick-started the women’s month by reading about the personal life, career, successes, and future dreams of one of the leading women in the…

Untimely Beginnings- Memoirs of Women Who Defied Fate is an anthology that includes contributions of 17 widows across various ages and race. 14 of the women…

Riveting, searing, brutally honest, and deeply-informed are some of the superlatives I can use in describing Jamil Farouk Khan’s memoir. I need to admit that it…

The Sepedi idiom, “Mosadi o swara thipa ka bogaleng” which easily translate into a mother holds a knife on its sharpest side, best describes Poppie Nongena. Upon finishing reading…

Hassen Ebrahim’s memoir titled From Marabastad to Mogadishu– The Journey of an ANC Soldier is perhaps the clearest retelling of South Africa’s ANC militant past. He…

Writing your own biography may be challenging in a number of ways. Firstly, it is difficult to document your entire life in just a few pages…

The cover of this book got my immediate attention even before I started perusing through the pages. The green passport cover sent me into a fabulous…

With its beginnings in a series of viral Facebook posts by Yusuf Daniels, who describes himself as an “accidental author”, this little book is a quick…

Even before I started perusing through the pages of this book, the cover signalled a story of success. Sylvester Chauke’s hairstyle on the front cover, which…

Issuing us his memories, first through a series of letters and later by essay; Jolyon Nuttall reintroduces his readers to the art of patient reading. Not…

Francoise Malby-Anthony’s memoir An Elephant in my Kitchen is bewitchingly captivating. Her writing style is entrancing and whimsical, humorous and heart-wrenching. With this, Malby-Anthony takes on…

South Africa is blessed with degree-holding waitresses, childminders, security guards and cleaners both from local and other African countries. The lack of unemployment and a few…

For many black South Africans born before technology, in the villages, townships and pre-democracy, childhood experiences were unique though similar. Herding cattles, sheeps, and goats, if…