South African Fiction

So begins award-winning poet DéLana R. A. Dameron’s debut novel, Redwood Court. The baby of the family, Mika Tabor spends much of her time in the care of loved ones, listening to their stories and witnessing their struggles. On Redwood Court, the cul-de-sac in the all-Black working-class suburb of Columbia, South Carolina, where her grandparents live, Mika learns important lessons from the people who raise her.

Returning to the city that inspired his first prize-winning book, Lost in the City, Jones has filled this new collection with people who call Washington, D.C., home. Yet it is not the city's power brokers that most concern him but rather its ordinary citizens.

It's 2017 at the University of Arkansas. Millie Cousins, a senior resident assistant, wants to graduate, get a job, and buy a house. So when Agatha Paul, a visiting professor and writer, offers Millie an easy yet unusual opportunity, she jumps at the chance. But Millie's starry-eyed hustle becomes jeopardized by odd new friends, vengeful dorm pranks, and illicit intrigue.

Casey Black needs an escape. When her picture-perfect vow renewal ceremony ends in her being left at the altar, the former model turned social media influencer has new fame--the kind she never wanted. An embarrassing viral video has cost her millions of followers, and her seven-year marriage is over. With her personal and business lives in shambles, Casey runs from New York City to South Carolina's Lowcountry hoping to find long-lost family. Family who can give her more answers about her past than her controlling mom-slash-manager has ever been willing to share.

Eric "Pharaoh" Wright is an up-and-coming producer and hip hop artist in the City of Birmingham. As his star begins to rise, he finds it harder and harder to find love. Groupies are good for one thing, and the women that he takes interest in can't deal with his schedule. Accepting his fate of being alone, he throws himself into his dream. Until he meets Gold Harris, a dope chick with a heart that matches her name. They hit it off instantly. Her not being impressed by his fame makes her that much more appealing. She accepts him as is and doesn't trip when he's not available because she's ...

Can you have a soul mate without a soul? After getting a fresh start, Noxie choose to focus on herself and her dreams. But MyKisha could change all that. After one night, the table turn, and she finds herself in an unwanted threesome. A threesome that could not only cause her more heartache, but potentially lead to a war. MyKisha just wants to be loved and appreciated, and she found that in Noxie. But her ex refuses to let go, and after lies are told, she may just be stuck in a situation that could make her miss out on her one chance at love. Shyne wants the power, and knows that MyKisha is...

I felt like Cinderella, but instead of leaving my shoe, I took my heart and ran. ❤︎❤︎ Renee Long ❤︎❤︎ I want a man, but not one who insights trouble. So, I do the next best thing… I pretend like one night in the billionaire’s arms wasn’t enough to render me hooked. Now, because of my dumb ex, I’ve got to be stuck in a house with a man my body craves. ❤︎❤︎ Jackson Hedges ❤︎❤︎ She’s a cop, and I’m a bad boy with good intentions. She’s got scars, and I make scars into tattoos. Just when I thought I had her… I got set back by a clown who took an ...

In this episode of Side Piece Chronicles, Tyrone Price finds himself torn between Samantha, the mother of his unborn twins, and Tammy, the woman his heart desires. However, Samantha's husband, Anthony refuses to let his wife go so easily.

Tina Jenson belongs to the same social stratum as Harris Chapman, but he’s out of her league - at least that’s what she thinks before they jump in bed together. It’s the perfect night, but when she overhears crude, hurtful comments the next morning, she can’t get away fast enough. Ten years later, Tina’s life is a mess. That night with Harris didn’t just hurt her feelings; it started a cascade of disappointment and heartbreak. Every time she bumps into Harris, her heart twists inside out. And she’s harboring a painful secret from their night together.

When the violent Cape wind blows from the southeast, they say the voices of the unquiet dead can be heard whispering through the deserted valley. Suzanne Joubert, a Huguenot refugee from war-torn France, is here to walk in her cousin’s footsteps. Louise Reydon-Joubert, the notorious she-captain and pirate commander, landed at the Cape of Good Hope more than sixty years ago, then disappeared from the record as if she had never existed. Suzanne has come to find her — to lay the stories to rest. But all is not as it seems . . .

In the 1950s, as a continuation of Moses, Man of the Mountain, Zora Neale Hurston penned a historical novel about one of the most infamous figures in the Bible, Herod the Great. In Hurston’s retelling, Herod is not the wicked ruler of the New Testament who is charged with the “slaughter of the innocents,” but a forerunner of Christ—a beloved king who enriched Jewish culture and brought prosperity and peace to Judea.

For years, it was called a "deteriorating situation." Now it is war. All over South Africa, mobs of fugitive white people scramble to board departing flights. But Bam and Maureen Smales have no such option. They take up their servant July's suggestion and seek refuge in his remote home village, forever altering the relationship of servant and master. Now it is the Smales who are dependent on their host, their savior - their keeper. Nadine Gordimer is the winner of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature.

When investigative journalist Nick Hunter dies from a scorpion sting on his isolated cheetah preserve in Kenya, American safari guide Jazz Jasper thinks it a natural tragedy – but then something doesn't fit. Her search for Nick’s killer leads her on a sweeping adventure from the rich suburbs of Nairobi to an illegal Saudi hunting camp, and the hidden home of a stone-age hunter. This is a page-turner with equal parts African adventure and clever murder mystery. “Powerful…A marvelous story with a wonderfully appealing heroine…Absolutely smashing.” – Jackson Clairion-Ledger ...

In Holler, Child’s eleven brilliant stories, LaToya Watkins presses at the bruises of guilt, love, and circumstance. Each story introduces us to a character irrevocably shaped by place and reaching toward something—hope, reconciliation, freedom. In “Cutting Horse,” the appearance of a horse in a man’s suburban backyard places a former horse breeder in trouble with the police. In “Holler, Child,” a mother is forced into an impossible position when her son gets in a kind of trouble she knows too well from the other side.

***Full Standalone*** Never hesitate to entertain strangers… Sometimes, being too close to a situation can cause you to miss out on what’s important. For Talia Cochran, all that mattered to her was providing for her family: her wife, Jasmine, and her daughters Nayomi and Persephone. She made sure that they had everything they needed, and everything they wanted. At least, she thought she did. She would soon find out just how wrong she was. Jasmine Cochran was a housewife and a recluse, since her family turned against her for coming out to the world. Raised in a strict Southern religious ...

Cows wandering on roads are an everyday hazard in rural South Africa. They appear suddenly, and their movements are unpredictable. Hitting them can have dire consequences. Dodging Cows is one man's journey from carefree childhood to lazy student to conscripted soldier to passionate farmer, buffeted by the fault lines in South Africa’s history. Gritty and uncompromisingly authentic, this thought provoking novel stirs all the emotions. Part One Follow the adventures of a young boy, Luke Ayres growing up on a farm in southern Natal barely aware of a country divided along racial lines. Part ...

Born in what’s now called Zimbabwe, journalist Peter Godwin returns to his homeland in 2008 after three decades of Robert Mugabe’s brutal economic and human destruction. Hoping to “dance on Mugabe’s political grave” in the wake of the tyrant’s defeat at the polls, Godwin instead risks his life to secretly chronicle Mugabe’s ruthless backlash of torture and terror locals call “The Fear.”

Georgia, 1962. Rose Perkins Bourdon returns home to Parsons, GA, without her husband and pregnant with another man’s baby. After tragedy strikes her husband in the war overseas, a numb Rose is left with pieces of who she used to be and is forced to figure out what she is going to do with the rest of her life. Her sister introduces her to members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee—young people are taking risks and fighting battles Rose has only seen on television.

Although apartheid is typically dated from the late 1940s until its dismantling decades later, segregationist policies had been the norm in South Africa from nearly the moment European explorers sailed to the region and began settling there. Whether it was displacing and fighting indigenous groups like the Khoi and San, or fighting other whites like the Boer, separation between ethnicities was the norm in South Africa for centuries before the election of Malan signaled the true rise of the Afrikaner far right.

With the same unforgettable and distinctive prose on display in his other books, Airtight Willie & Me is further evidence that Iceberg Slim was an expert at capturing the language of the streets. Always compelling, sometimes funny, and often bleak, Slim gives us six slices of city life that will leave you thirsting for more.