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Layered: Lebo Mazibuko’s novel Fabrics of Love came out in August. Photo: Thandukwazi Lungelo Gcabashe

Exploring the fabric of family and identity in Lebo Mazibuko’s Fabrics of Love

Lebo Mazibuko’s second novel, Fabrics of Love, looks at themes of family trauma, black womanhood, absent fathers and heritage

Always in the blood: Antjie Krog’s autobiographical novel Blood’s Inner Rhyme has just been published. Photo: Brenda Veldtman

Returning to the bones of home

Back in the Free State, a daughter rediscovers the textures of home, family and unspoken inheritances in Antjie Krog’s autobiographical novel

An explicit, ambitious debut novel that delivers on sensuality but struggles to balance story, substance and seduction

Sex, politics and very little else: A look at The Sweetest Taboo

An explicit, ambitious debut novel that delivers on sensuality but struggles to balance story, substance and seduction

Matt Haig’s new novel is a story too good to spoil

A moving, mind-bending journey of grief, hope and unexpected transformation

Spirit of debut novel will blow you away

Lindani Mbunyuza-Memani weaves a tale of identity, longing and the relentless pull of the past

Monster: Arvashni Seeripat’s The Story I Told Myself, set in India in 1887, involves a mother fleeing from a dark secret. Photo: Supplied

Excerpt: The Story I Told Myself

An edited excerpt from the historical novel by South African author Arvashni Seeripat

hile in prison, Yahya Sinwar wrote The Thorn and the Carnation. (Photo by Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The Thorn and the Carnation: A novel by a Palestinian leader during his incarceration in Israeli prisons

Yahya Sinwar writes that ‘despite tireless attempts to erase their Arab identity, Islamic faith and Palestinian heritage, they remain more steadfast than anyone could have…

In defiance of loss, they love

A world-wandering love finds itself in music, in the harmonics of pain, and in the deep fullness of time

‘Gogo is too much’: Zukiswa Wanner is the author of several novels, including Men of the South, which was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.

Discover God’s gift to women

This is an edited extract from prolific writer Zukiswa Wanner’s new novel, Love Marry Kill

Mixed blessing: Thabile Shange’s novel deals with themes around love and relationships – especially the challenges which arise when the couple are of different nationalities – as well as family, friendships and identity.

Romantic tale of forbidden love

Uplifting, relatable novel uses the relationship between a Zulu woman and a Nigerian man to explore xenophobia

Transplanted cultures: Indian women are shown on a sugar plantation in Natal in 1939. Indentured labourers arrived in South Africa in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Photo: Reg Speller/Fox Photos/Getty Images

Children of Sugarcane: Where nothing sweet endures

With a rich plot full of surprises, Joanne Joseph’s debbut novel is bound together by a poetic turn of phrase

On set: Behind the scenes of Christiaan Olwagen’s take on the Poppie Nongena narrative where the protagonist (centre) is played by Clementine Mosimane. (Melanie Cleary)
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Poppie Nongena: The trouble with this truncated film adaptation

In the original novel, readers are exposed to Poppie Nongena’s backstory, highlighting the effects of apartheid. But the film’s visual shorthand doesn’t capture the nuances

This is a selection of the best stories published in the newspaper’s Africa section this year
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The best of the M&G’s Africa coverage in 2019

This is a selection of the best stories published in the newspaper’s Africa section this year, in no particular order

Intruding on comfort: Mohale Mashigo shows the good, bad and colourful views of the African future in her new book. Photo: Thomas Holder

An iconoclast gets kitted out for new terrain

‘Intruders’ is the effort of an author putting in work for her generation.

Multifaceted: Iman Rappetti was born to an Indian father and a coloured mother

Rappetti reveals her many selves

Growing up as mixed race robbed her of a solid identity, but the celebrated journalist writes of how she embraced the beauty of her complexity

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness: One of the recommended summer reads for the upcoming holiday season.

Spice up your down time

Welcome Lishivha chooses a selection of books that will keep you occupied while your feet are up

It remains to be seen whether Zuma will be a better tactician than Mbeki

The borders between bodies and belonging

Taiye Selasi unsettles the space on to which identity is mapped — forcing her audience to seek out alternative forms of belonging

War wasn’t hell for Heller

Fans of Joseph Heller’s novel <em>Catch-22 </em>may be surprised to learn that the author actually enjoyed his military service during World War II.

Novelist Sapphire complains of ‘very real’ racism in the arts

The author of <i>Precious</i> talks about abiding barriers to black artists in America.

Banished to obscurity

Is the focus of local publishers on ‘contemporary’ novels depriving us of good South African stories?