TOP 10 SOUTH AFRICAN NOVELS

The Story of an African Farm by Olive Schreiner
First published in 1883, this depiction of life on an isolated farm in the Karoo is remarkable not only for the beauty of its descriptive writing, but for the radical and feminist ideas expressed by its free-spirited heroine, Lyndall.

Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
Paton’s powerful denunciation of the injustices of a racist society was published in 1948 – the year apartheid became institutionalized in South Africa – and tells the story of a Zulu pastor, journeying to Johannesburg in search of his renegade son.

A Dry White Season by Andre Brink
Another excoriating indictment of apartheid is offered by this 1979 novel about a white teacher forced to confront the brutality of the system, after the death in police custody of the school gardener’s son.

Burger’s Daughter by Nadine Gordimer
One of many fine novels by the doyenne of South African fiction, this work – published in 1979 – is seen from the point of view of Rosa Burger, daughter of an imprisoned political activist, whose life has been lived in the shadow of the ‘struggle’.

Disgrace by J M Coetzee
Coetzee’s bleak account of the realities of post-apartheid South Africa was awarded the Booker prize in 1999, and is seen from the point of view of David Lurie – a professor of literature at the University of Cape Town, who takes refuge from a disastrous sexual entanglement at his daughter’s farm in the Eastern Cape, only to find that a worse ‘disgrace’ overtakes him.

The Good Doctor by Damon Galgut
An equally savage indictment of the failures and compromises which are so much a feature of the ‘New South Africa’ is to be found in this tautly written 2003 novel about a young doctor who abandons a promising career in order to work at a run-down hospital in the former Bantu ‘homelands’.

Frankie and Stankie by Barbara Trapido
Trapido’s account of a 1950s childhood overshadowed by apartheid, published in 2003, has the vivid immediacy of autobiography, and is enlivened by moments of surreal humour.

My Mother’s Lovers by Christopher Hope
The wonderfully eccentric figure of octogenarian Kathleen Healey – aviatrix, explorer, society hostess and collector of men – presides over this dark and witty depiction of South Africa in the post-democracy era, published in 2006.

Dance With a Poor Man’s Daughter by Pamela Jooste
Set in the infamous ‘District Six’ area of Cape Town during the 1970s, this 2008 novel is seen from the point of view of a young ‘coloured’ girl, caught up in the era’s turbulent events.

A Man Who Is Not A Man by Thando Mgqolozana
Recommended by Nadine Gordimer at this years’s Hay Festival, Mgqolozana’s 2009 debut deals with Xhosa circumcision rites, and their often traumatic effect upon young boys – a controversial subject in a country still divided by tribal loyalties.