Book of the Month May 2013

More than places to get a hair cut, barbershops and salons serve as the community hubs of South African townships. Known locally as informal barbershops, these establishments attract customers with sharp and snappy vernacular designs. In South African Township Barbershops & Salons, Simon Weller presents vivid photographs of signage, shops and their patrons alongside interviews with the proprietors, customers and sign makers. This honest and intimate portrayal of small businesses challenges preconceptions, gives voice to township residents and reveals an undeniable aspect of South African culture.

Something about the author :


Simon Weller graduated with a degree in graphic design from from Staffordshire University. He worked as a cover designer in London for publishers Penguin Books and Harper Collins before becoming a freelance photographer in 2001.

His clients include Airstream, Channel 4 television, EMI Records, Tate Gallery, Toyota and Wired. Simon's photographs are represented by Getty Images and Corbis. In the last decade he has photographed in China, India, Japan, Mongolia, Southeast Asia, Russia and the United States.

Source :  Weller, Simon, South African townships barbershops and salons. Mark Batty Publisher, New York.





Book of the Month April 2013

David Kramer : 'n biografie / Mathilda Slabbert & Dawid de Villiers



Wie is die man agter die rooi vellies en die blink kitaar? David Kramer se bekendheid strek wyer asdie Karoo se vlaktes. Hy het volksbesig geword danksy sy wegholtreffers in die tagtigerjare en sy verskyning in etlike Volkswagen-advertensies. 'n dekade later bring sy musiekblyspele saam met Taliep Petersen internasionale roem met vertonings op die West End en Broadway.


Ten spyte van "almal se pel" -persona, is Kramer egter 'n hoogs private mens. Dié biografie onthul die fyn waarnemer en intellektureel, die man wat kan toor met Afrikaans en die rustelose kunstenaar wat gedurig smag na nuwe uitdagings. Dit verklap ook waarom hy vir 'n tyd lank sy rooi velskoene opgehang het.

Iets oor die skrywers :

Mathilda Slabbert doseer Engels aan die Universiteit van Stellenbosch en het in 2010 haar post-doktorale navorsing oor David Kramer se werk voltooi. Sy het al oor uiteenlopende onderwerpe artikels gepubliseer, onder meeer oor die eko-kritiek, mites en oor lewensbeskrywing. Sy woon op Bettysbaai.

Dawid de Villiers is 'n dosent by die departement Engels aan die Universiteit van Stellenbosch. Hy spits hom hoofsaaklik toe op Amerikaanse literatuur, maar het ook artikels oor Suid-Afrikaanse musiek en rolprente gepubliseer. Hy stel tans veral belang in literatuur met die see as tema. Hoewel hy gebore is in Amsterdam, het hy grootgeword in Wellington waar hy steeds woon saam met René en hul seun, Lukas. van tyd tot tyd maak hy musiek saam met sy band.

Bron : David Kramer : 'n biografie © 2011 / Mathilda Slabbert en Dawid de Villiers.

Book of the Month March 2013

Cyril Ramaphosa © 2007 / Anthony Butler

Cyril Ramaphosa is one of South Africa's is one of South Africa's most celebrated political leaders. He first came to prominence in the 1980's as general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers and as a major force in the domestic struggle for political freedom. When Nelson Mandela was released from prison in February 1990, Ramaphosa was at the head of the reception committee that greeted him. As secretary-general of the ANC after its unbanning, he re-established the liberation movement as a mass political party. He is widely credited with playing a major role in the negotiations that led to the democratic settlement in South Africa, and in devising the country's new and internationally renowned constitution. Soon after this triumph, Ramaphosa left politics and became a successful businessman.

This commanding biography by Anthon Butler tells the story of Cyril Ramaphosa's life for the first time. It is based on rich interviews with many of the subject's friends and contemporaries, and it situates Ramaphosa's achievements and his shortcomings in the context of the often tumultuous historical events that surrounded him. Here is a frank appraisal of the achievements and limitations of one of South Africa's most enigmatic political figures.

Source : Cyril Ramaphosa © 2007 / Anthony Butler

Book of the Month Jan/Feb 2013

Voices from the forest : celebrating nature and culture in Xhosaland / Tony Dold & Michelle Cocks.

Michelle Cocks and Tony Dold have spent many years documenting the role that nature plays in the cultural and spiritual landscapes of the Xhosa people in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Voices from the forest presents, for the first time, this poorly understood theme in the context of sustaining cultural heritage and conserving biodiversity in South Africa..

The book is not only a record of knowledge about Xhosa people and their use of plants, but serves as a pointer to sustainable practices in the future. In our modernising world, cultural diversity is threatened by the loss of natural diversity, and finding ways of protecting the region's biodiversity and cultural diversity is of vital importance.

Voices from the forest includes a wealth of information on Eastern Cape plants and animals, Xhosa culture and the environment, which is not recorded as comprehensively, accessibly and authoritatively anywhere else. It is a unique and vital record of information. It also gives moving insights into the Xhosa people's hold on their culture, their sense of place and of their history. As a focussed social record, it is exceptionally valuable - and it also has a far wider application : what you learn from it, you know must also apply in different ways to countless other peoples whose way of living has been changed and uprooted.

Tony Dold is a plant taxonomist and ethnobotanist and is the curator of the Selmar Schonland Herbarium at the Albany Museum in Grahamstown. Michelle Cocks is a research officer at the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at Rhodes University.

A husband and wife team, Tony and Michelle both grew up in rural Transkei. They are passionate about the link between different cultures and the environment, and for the past 20 years have documented and photographed indigenous plant use in the Eastern Cape. They believe their shared passion has birthed a new vision for the conservation of biological and cultural diversity and together they facilitate a schools education programme called " Inkcubeko nendalo - Bio-cultural Diversity Education Programme".   Source : Voices from the forest : celebrating nature and culture in Xhosaland /Tony Dold & Michelle Cocks.

Book of the Month November 2012

The artist in the garden : the quest for Moses Tladi / Angela Read Lloyd

Like Monet, who was his first inspiration, Moses Tladi was a gardener and an artist. Born in remote Sekhukhuneland, east of Pretoria, South Africa, the son of a medicine man who made a living by working in iron, and a mother who was a gifted potter. In his early childhood, Tladi herded cattle in the dramatic hill-country around his home.

It is not known how he encountered Herbert Read, but in the mid 1920s he found employment in Johannesburg as gardener to Read at his property in the fashionable suburb of Parktown. Read introduced Tladi to the collector and philanthropist Howard Pim, and together they promoted Tladi at public exhibitions from 1929 onwards.

The quest for Moses Tladi is a poignant and personal story relating to a wider world of art, family, home, love and loss against a background of the dramatic events that have encompassed all of us since the dawn of the new South Africa.

Source : The artist in the garden : the quest for Moses Tladi, 2009, Print Matters, Noordhoek, South Africa

Book of the Month October 2012

In this autobiography Mimi Coertse tells her story of exceptional talent, perseverance, personal suffering and international fame. We discover the toddler who wanted to be " the best singer in the world" ; the schoolgirl who was denied a soprano role because she was " too difficult" and of a novice who sang herself into a contract with the Vienna State Opera and quite overwhelmed this European city of music.

Mimi's achievements increasingly became a voice for South Africa. In the very darkest days of isolation she sang of and for her country, across all borders. Living to sing.

After literally coming in from the cold, Mini at last could become a mother and was soon campaigning for understanding between divided communities. She continues to seek out and develop new local singing talent, introduces astonished audiences to artists who have found their voices in a new South Africa.

A Life to Sing is the life story of a gifted woman who poured all her love and sorrow into her dream and her life's work. It's a story with as much drama, irony and pathos as the roles Mimi performed on stage. It's a voice that echoes log after the diva has left the theatre.

Source : Mimi Coertse, A life to sing : my story as told to Ian Raper, 2011, Rosslyn Press, Boordfontein, South Africa.

Book of the Month September 2012

Sandra McGregor, like many people passionate about Cape Town, was not born in the city. Her extraordinary sensitivity is the subject of this book and Dolores Fleischer, whose friendship has stimulated this record of Sandra's life, shares this passion.

Sandra has experienced an intense love affair with the mother city. Her most meaningful paintings are those she did in District Six, an inner part of Cape Town targeted in 1966 for forced removals and demolition by the apartheid government..

An artist in search of place and meaning, she experimented with different styles of painting, but it was here, motivated by her deep love for her friends in the District, that she felt fully human. She did her paintings not to make a political point, she sought no fame, power or notoriety, there was no commercial motive or cleverness in her actions. The reason for painting was simply her feeling of complete "oneness" with the place and her acceptance by the people. She captured for us what it was like to be a Capetonian in the days before the removals. The part of Cape Town she painted no longer exists, except perhaps in the Distric Six Museum and St George's Cathedral, her new home.

Dolores Fleischer has worked with Sandra to complete a circle of friendship of over seventy years. She has given us an unusual insight into the personal struggles of a woman born into privilege and contending with love and loss. Hidden from view is Dolores' own testimony of selflessness, kindness and love, those things that are about making us fully human.

Source:  Sandra McGregor : "onse artist" in district six / Dolores Fleischer