45 South African novel stubs

An Act of Terror is a novel by Andre Brink, first published in 1991.

Ama: A Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade is the debut historical novel by Manu Herbstein. It has been described as a work of faction that "successfully blends extensive and meticulous research with abundant imagination to transport the reader into the violent world of the Atlantic Slave Trade."

Bitter Fruit is a novel by Achmat Dangor first published in 2001 by Kwela Books of Cape Town. Set in South Africa in 1998, it is about the disintegration of a Coloured family in the years after the end of apartheid. According to Gabriel Gbadamosi's review in The Guardian, "All the bases are touched in a reckoning with South Africa's past and present turmoil, and no box left unopened in the search for some kind of limbo or twilight zone where all unresolved conflicts might find resolution."

Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life is a fictionalised autobiographical work by J. M. Coetzee, and focuses on his years spent growing up in South Africa. The novel focuses on his troubled time in Worcester but looks back to happier times living in a large house in Rosebank, Cape Town. By the end of the novel they had moved again, this time to Plumstead, Cape Town.

A Chain of Voices is a 1982 novel by Afrikaans writer André Brink. The novel is a historical novel which recounts the roots of the apartheid system during the early part of the 19th century. The novel focuses on a slave revolt center in the country north-east of Cape Town. The novel uses a coalition of voices, representing the whole range of social groups in South Africa.

The Conservationist is a 1974 novel by the South African writer Nadine Gordimer. The book was a joint winner of the Booker-McConnell Prize for fiction. It is described as more complex in design and technique than Gordimer's earlier novels.

Courtney's War is a 2018 novel by Wilbur Smith and David Churchill.

A Dry White Season is a 1979 novel by Afrikaner novelist André Brink. The title quotes a line from the struggle poem For Don M. - Banned by Mongane Wally Serote. The novel focuses on the death during detention of a man wrongly suspected of being a black activist. The novel challenges apartheid, depicting the transformation of a ruling class Afrikaner's opposition to the governing, white supremacist regime. The novel was initially banned in South Africa, though Brink had 3,000 copies published through an underground press.

Elephant Song is a 1991 novel by Wilbur Smith. Publishers Weekly stated said the novel contained "some romance, more sex, lots of bloody fighting and international intrigues, all carried out by deftly directed larger-than-life cardboard characters, will surely please Smith's fans and other action-addicted readers."

Fiela's Child is a South African drama written by Dalene Matthee and published in 1985. The book was originally written in Afrikaans under the name Fiela se Kind, and was later translated into English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Hebrew, Icelandic and Sinhalese, among others.

André Philippus Brink, OIS was a South African novelist, essayist and poet. He wrote in both Afrikaans and English and taught English at the University of Cape Town.

Flowers in the Sand (2011), the second novel by South African author Clive Algar, has been described by literary critics as "completely engrossing and superbly written" and "a great adventure story".

Get a Life is a 2005 novel by the South African writer Nadine Gordimer. The novel tells the story of environmental activist Paul Bannerman and his family. Paul is diagnosed with thyroid cancer and, after surgery and subsequent radiation treatment, has to live quarantined at his parents' place for some time. This significant change in his life also affects his family. The novel received mixed reviews by critics, and departs from other novels by Gordimer as it does not directly deal with Apartheid, instead focusing on the struggle of a single individual.

A Guest of Honour is a 1970 novel by Nobel winning South African writer Nadine Gordimer. Published four years after her novel The Late Bourgeois World, the novel is a political novel that explores the role of revolutionary ideas in new African states.

Nadine Gordimer was a South African writer, political activist and recipient of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature. She was recognized as a woman "who through her magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very great benefit to humanity".

Ice Road is a novel written by South African-born Gillian Slovo. It was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. Set in Leningrad in the 1930s, the story about power in Stalinist Russia is narrated by Irina Davydovna, a cleaning lady.

Imaginings of Sand is a South African novel by André Brink, published in 1996. The author wrote the book in Afrikaans and in English. It is set in South Africa at the time of the first democratic elections.

In a Strange Room is a 2010 novel by South African writer Damon Galgut. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2010, as well as for the Ondaatje Prize.

An Instant in the Wind is a 1975 novel by André Brink which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Set in 1751, the novel focuses on the relationship of a white woman and a black slave. Kirkus Reviews describes the novel as beginning with conflict, but quickly descending into "sensual, cerebral dialogues on love and personhood."

King's Gold is a novel by South African author Glenn Macaskill, published in 2003 by Crest Publishing. It contains graphic references to the Gukurahundi, the occupation of Matabeleland by Zimbabwe's Fifth Brigade in the 1980s. The majority of the book is centred on two main plotlines: The political efforts of the Zimbabwe African People's Union, and the discovery and subsequent extraction of an ancient treasure, a solid gold bird statue created at the whim of King Mzilikazi some 180 years before.

Kings of the Water is the third novel from writer Mark Behr, published in November 2009.

Kontakion for You Departed is a book by Alan Paton dedicated to his wife Dorrie Francis Lusted. The book was published in 1969, two years after her death from emphysema in 1967.

The Late Bourgeois World is a 1966 novella by Nadine Gordimer. The novel follows an egocentric White South African woman, as she negotiates a failing marriage, "half-hearted' love affairs and political intrigue. The novel was banned by the Censorship board in South Africa.

Looking on Darkness is a 1973 novel by prominent Afrikaans novelist Andre Brink. The novel was the first Afrikaans book to be banned by the South African government.

No Time Like the Present is a 2012 novel by South African writer Nadine Gordimer. It was Gordimer's last published novel during her lifetime. The novel deals with a variety of issues in contemporary South Africa, including unemployment, HIV-AIDS, and corruption.

Occasion for Loving is a 1963 novel by Nobel prize-winning South African author Nadine Gordimer. It was her third published novel, and sixth published book.

October is a 2014 novel by Zoë Wicomb. Wicomb, who won a 2013 Windham–Campbell Literature Prize, is originally from Namaqualand, South Africa, and is an emeritus professor at the University of Strathclyde.

The Persistence of Memory is a novel by Tony Eprile. It was published in 2004 by W. W. Norton & Company. The story portrays 1960s and 1970s South Africa through the experiences of Paul Sweetbread, a young Jewish South African with a photographic memory. The novel follows Paul from his experiences in school, through his service in the South African Defence Force during the country's border war, to his participation in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The novel deals heavily with the question of white liberal guilt during the apartheid regime.

The Pickup is a 2001 novel by South African writer Nadine Gordimer. It tells the story of a couple: Julie Summers, a white woman from a financially secure family, and Abdu, an illegal Arab immigrant in South Africa. After Abdu's visa is refused, the couple returns to his unnamed homeland, where she is the alien. Her experiences and growth as an alien in another culture form the heart of the work. The Pickup considers the issues of displacement, alienation, and immigration, class and economic power, religious faith, and the ability of people to see and love across these divides. This novel won the 2002 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the Best Book from Africa.

The Restless Supermarket is a novel by Croatian-South African author Ivan Vladislavic, which tracks the changes in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, during the 1990s, through the eyes of a grumpy, retired proof-reader who spends his life in one café. It was published by David Philip Publishers in Cape Town in 2001 and was recently reissued. The book was published again in 2014 by publishing house 'And Other Stories.'

Rumours of Rain is a South African novel by André Brink, published in 1978. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It is set on a South African farm during apartheid.

The Schooldays of Jesus is a 2016 novel by J. M. Coetzee. It is Coetzee's 13th novel and is a sequel to the 2013 novel The Childhood of Jesus. It resumes the story of a young boy named David who is brought up in a foreign land.

A Sinless Season is a novel by South African author Damon Galgut. It was published in 1982 when the author was only seventeen. It details the interactions between Scott, Raoul, and Joseph, three young inmates at the Bleda reformatory.

A Sparrow Falls is a 1977 novel by Wilbur Smith. It is one of the Courtney Novels and is set during and after World War I.

A Sport of Nature is a 1987 novel by the South African writer Nadine Gordimer.

Summertime is a 2009 novel by South African-born Nobel laureates J. M. Coetzee. It is the third in a series of fictionalized memoirs by Coetzee and details the life of one John Coetzee from the perspective of five people who have known him. The novel largely takes place in the mid to late 1970s, largely in Cape Town, although there are also important scenes in more remote South African settings. While there are obvious similarities between the actual writer of the novel, J. M. Coetzee, and the subject of the novel, John Coetzee, there are some differences - most notably that the John Coetzee of the novel is reported as having died. Within the novel, the opinions and thoughts of the five people are compiled and interpreted by a fictitious biographer, who also adds fragments from John Coetzee's notebooks. It was shortlisted for the 2009 Booker Prize. Coetzee was already a two-time winner of the award and it is for this reason that literary commentator Merritt Moseley believes he did not win it for Summertime.

Tandia is Bryce Courtenay's 1991 sequel to his own best-selling novel The Power of One. It follows the story of a young woman, Tandia, who was brutally raped and then banished from her own home. Tandia later meets up with Peekay, the protagonist from The Power of One and their stories continue on together.

A Time of Angels is a 1992 book by Patricia Schonstein and follows the lives of a number of Italian Jews in post-Apartheid South Africa.

Time of the Butcherbird is the final novel by South African novelist Alex La Guma. The novel was first published in 1979.

Ways of Dying is a 1995 novel by South African novelist and playwright Zakes Mda. The text follows the wanderings and creative endeavors of Toloki, a self-employed professional mourner, as he traverses an unnamed South African city during the nation's transitional period.

Welcome to Our Hillbrow, is a novel by South African novelist Phaswane Mpe which deals with issues of xenophobia, AIDS, tradition, and inner city status in the Hillbrow neighborhood of post-apartheid Johannesburg. It was first published in 2001.

When Smuts Goes is a dystopian novel by Dr. Arthur Keppel-Jones. The novel is set during a future history of South Africa, following the ascension of Afrikaner nationalists and their increasingly destructive quest for total apartheid. It foreshadowed the fall of Jan Christiaan Smuts and his United Party administration, a rupture in ties with the British Commonwealth, and the declaration of a Second South African Republic. Presiding over the regime which follows is Obadja Bult, a dominion theologian influenced by the ideals of the former Ossewabrandwag. His blunt authoritarian streak gives spark to racial conflict—culminating in foreign intervention and troubled majority rule.

A World of Strangers is a 1958 novel by South African novelist and Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer. The novel included mixed reviews, drawing criticism for its pedantic explanation of Gordimer's worldview. The novel was banned in South Africa for 12 years.

A Wreath for Udomo is a 1956 novel by South African novelist Peter Abrahams. The novel follows a London-educated black African, Michael Udomo, who returns to Africa to become a revolutionary leader in the fictional country of Panafrica and is eventually martyred. The novel explores a revolutionary politics, exploring the diversity of actors and political communities needed to overcome colonial oppression.

Youth (2002) is a semi-fictionalised autobiographical novel by J. M. Coetzee, recounting his struggles in 1960s London after fleeing the political unrest of Cape Town.