There Was A Country – A Personal History of Biafra
R170.00
The defining experience of Chinua Achebe’s life was the Nigerian civil war, also known as the Biafran War.
For more than forty years Achebe was silent on those terrible years, until he produced this towering reckoning with one of modern Africa’s most fateful events.
A marriage of history, remembrance, poetry and vivid first-hand observation, There Was A Country is a work of wisdom and compassion from one of the great voices of our age.
Author(s): Chinua Achebe
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The Cry of Winnie Mandela transgresses the borders between fact and fiction, fusing aspects of the novel, biography and essay. It is a beautiful book, the writing lucid and quietly passionate, a work of deep intelligence.~ Chris Dunton, Mail & Guardian
The life story of Winnie Mandela remains one of the great dramas of our times, an ongoing tale of triumphs and tragedies that is still unfolding. In The cry of Winnie Mandela, a highly acclaimed novel first released in 2003, Njabulo S Ndebele focuses on four women at a specific period in the history of Southern Africa who have spent time waiting for their men to return. Their ordinary, ‘private’ stories are anchored to the more powerful public stories of Penelope, of Ancient Greek mythology, who waited nineteen years while her husband Odysseus was away, and Winnie Mandela, who waited for twenty seven years. The women question themselves and each about how and why they waited and what this waiting did to them, leading to a series of extraordinary and haunting ‘conversations’ with one another as well as Penelope and Winnie.
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In this book, Vuyisani outlines some money mistakes he went through and how he redeemed himself from the consequences of those mistakes. The book contains practical financial success principles, and therefore can be read by anyone who desires to build wealth from scratch.
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An intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States
In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America – the first African-American to serve in that role – she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare.
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In Sigh The Beloved Country, Bongani Madondo writes about people, issues, women who rock!!!, believers, fast boys and their faster toys, inner city and street life, and cultural criticism, amongst others.
Nobody escapes his critical pen, from Kenny Kunene, Miriam Makeba to Oscar Pistorius.
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Author(s): Bongani Madondo
“At home with Muhammad Ali is an intimate, behind the scenes portrait of a legend, a man admired by and respected as the greatest sporting icon in our age, written by Ali’s daughter Hana.
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This powerful and widely acclaimed autobiography of Sindiwe Magona’s early years in South Africa, announced the arrival of a major new black writer. Here she gives an account of her eventful first 23 years and tells a candid, unself-pitying story of trium.
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While her younger brother Barack grew up in the U.S. and Indonesia, Auma Obama’s childhood played out at the other end of the world in a remote village in Kenya, the birthplace of the siblings’ shared father. Barack and Auma met for the first time in the 1980s, and they built a lasting relationship which led to travels together in Kenya, research into their family history, and Auma’s support for her brother’s political career and eventual bid for the U.S. presidency. Auma spent sixteen years studying and living in Germany, moved to England for love, and gave birth to a daughter there. The tension between her original and chosen worlds and cultures was a constant challenge, and eventually Auma returned to Africa and worked to support young men and women in shaping their futures. In this candid and emotional memoir, Auma shares her own story as well as recollections of and experiences with her famous brother, who says about their first encounter: “I hugged her, we looked at each other, and laughed. I knew right then that I loved her.”
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When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley, one girl fought for her right to an education. On Tuesday, 9 October 2012, she almost paid the ultimate price when she was shot in the head at point-blank range. Malala Yousafzai’s extraordinary journey has taken her from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations. She has become a global symbol of peaceful protest and is the youngest ever winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. I Am Malala will make you believe in the power of one person’s voice to inspire change in the world. ***** ‘Malala is an inspiration to girls and women all over the world’ JK Rowling ‘Moving and illuminating’ Observer ‘Inspirational and powerful’ Grazia ‘Her story is astonishing’ Spectator
Author(s): Malala Yousafzai, Christina Lamb
Exit! is the story of Grizelda Grootboom life of prostitution and her ultimate escape from it all.
Grizelda’s life was dramatically changed when she was gang raped at the age of nine by teenagers in her township. Her story starts there. It is a story about the cycle of poverty, family abandonment, dislocation and survival in the streets of Cape Town. She reveals the seedy and often demonised life of a prostitute; she describes the clubs and beds of the prostitution and drug industry over a twelve-year period.
She moves to Johannesburg at the age of 18 in an attempt to start a new life, but instead she is trafficked on arrival in Yeoville, tied in a room for two weeks and forced to work as a sex slave. What follows is a life of living hand-to-mouth, from one street corner to another, being pimped, being taught how to strip, and acquiring and using a variety of drugs – from buttons, ecstasy and cannabis to cocaine – to sustain herself. She speaks of how her prostitution gains momentum in city strip clubs and the sometimes tragic pregnancies that would follow.
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Lerato Tshabalala first came to our attention in 2011 with her ‘Urban Miss’ column in the Sunday Times, and since then she has by turns entertained, exasperated, amused and confounded her fans and critics alike.
Now, with her first book, she looks set to become the national institution she deserves to be. With her customary wit and keen insight into social, political and cultural affairs, Lerato shines a bright – and controversial – light on South African society and the quirky ways of the country. She is brutally honest about her experiences as a black South African in post-apartheid Mzansi, and no subject is too sacred for her to explore: annoying car guards, white-dominated corporate South Africa, cultural stereotypes, economic and racial inequality, and gender politics, among many other topics, come under her careful – and often laugh-out-loud – scrutiny.
The Way I See It is written for people who are hungry for a book that is thought-provoking, funny, irreverent and truly South African all at the same time. It is light but full of depth: like a supermodel with an MBA!
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