Historical Fiction South Africa

This is the most distinguished novel that has come out of South Africa in the 20th century, and it is one of the most important novels of the modern era. Cry, the Beloved Country is in some ways a sad book; it is an indictment of a social system that drives native races into resentment and crime; it is a story of Fate, as inevitable, as relentless, as anything of Thomas Hardy's. Beautifully wrought with high poetic compassion, Cry, the Beloved Country is more than just a story, it is a profound experience of the human spirit.

When Ann Waite discovers a shipwreck in Algoa Bay she is stunned to find survivors: a scarred sailor and a little boy. As the man walks away into the distance alone, Ann is left to raise the young child, Harry, in place of the baby she tragically lost at sea. Disaster and hardship befall Ann and Harry, and desperation drives them into the path of the mysterious shipwrecked man once more. Ralph Courtney has recently escaped Robben Island with two fellow prisoners and is destined to seek his fortune at Nativity Bay, the fabled place about which his father told him stories.

Born in a South Africa divided by racism and hatred, this one small boy will come to lead all the tribes of Africa. Through enduring friendships with Hymie and Gideon, Peekay gains the strength he needs to win out. And in a final conflict with his childhood enemy, the Judge, Peekay will fight to the death for justice.

From the author of The Power of One comes a new novel about Africa. The time is 1939. White South Africa is a deeply divided nation with many of the Afrikaner people fanatically opposed to the English. The world is also on the brink of war, and South Africa elects to fight for the Allied cause against Germany. Six-year-old Tom Fitzsaxby finds himself in The Boys Farm, an orphanage in a remote town in the high mountains, where the Afrikaners side fiercely with Hitler's Germany.

As the 1980s draw to a close, South Africa is a maelstrom of political violence with the apartheid regime in its death throes. Young Martin Helger is the struggling odd duck at an elite private boys school in Johannesburg, with his father, a rough-handed scrap dealer, and his brother, a mysterious legend. When a beautiful and manipulative American arrives at the family home, Martin soon finds himself wrenched out of his isolated bubble and thrust into the raw heart of the struggle.

Told through the lives and spirits of four generations of amaTolo women, including The Old, who speak wisdom with ever-increasing urgency, it moves between the bustling township setting of Kwanele and the different rhythms of rural village life.

South Africa, 1871. Jack Lark no longer walks alone. With the worldly Anna Baker by his side, he travels to the Cape Colony diamond fields determined to seek their fortune—and an adventurous new life together. The journey north soon turns violent as tensions erupt between other hopeful diggers and a gang of Boer men. Everyone has their eye on the same elusive prize—and some will stop at nothing to get it. For Jack and Anna, unearthing a diamond is only half the battle. Getting out of the mines alive will prove far more difficult—and dangerous.

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.

New South Africa emerged peacefully and full of hope after Apartheid. Yet life is looking desperate for one white family, struggling to survive. Martha, Hendrik and their daughter Magda are six months behind with their rent when they are finally asked to vacate their house in the quiet town of Wolseley. Selling their remaining things, they head to Cape Town, their last chance.

Botswana, 1976: Isaac Muthethe thinks he is dead. Smuggled across the border from South Africa in a hearse, he awakens covered in dust, staring at blue sky and the face of White Dog. Far from dead, he is, for the first time, in a country without apartheid. A medical student in South Africa, he was forced to flee after witnessing a friend murdered by white members of the South African Defense Force.

African-American reverend Joshua Clay welcomes the chance to minister in South Africa. Once there, however, he is caught between others' expectations and his own beliefs. Turning to God, Joshua must gather the strength to search for answers and bring some peace to a grief-stricken land.

Pete de Lange must survive as a teenager in a small Natal town during the 1980s, together with his new-found friends, Sarita and Petrus. In a country marked by turmoil and racial conflict, this is not as easy as it seems. Pete and his friends witnessed a horrendous crime, and the perpetrator is on their case. Will justice prevail? In between all of this, Pete must try to make the first rugby team and win the heart of his high-school crush, Renate.

In turn-of-the-century South Africa, 14-year-old Lettie, her younger brother, and her mother are Dutch Afrikaner settlers who have been taken from their farm by British soldiers and are being held in a concentration camp. It is early in the Boer War, and Lettie's father, grandfather, and brother are off fighting the British as thousands of Afrikaner women and children are detained. Determined to dictate their own fate, Lettie and her family give each other strength and hope as they fight to survive amid increasingly dire conditions.

In this dramatic sequel to Admission, a Story Born of Africa, Adam Broadford’s continuing journey of transformation is profound, compelling, and life-changing. Deserting another call-up from the South African Army, and a stowaway on a Union-Castle ship bound from Cape Town to Southampton, Adam yells a promise back to Felicity, the love of his life, to return. Desperation, desire, and guilt plague him. On his adventures he seeks resolution from his unusually difficult past, encounters far-influencing people, but remains challenged by his own deceptions and betrayals.