Book excerpts

‘Those few strands of barbed wire fence stood between her and her children, her home, her husband and her country’—Read an excerpt from the new edition of Lauretta Ngcobo’s Cross of Gold

The JRB presents an excerpt from a new edition of Lauretta Ngcobo’s seminal novel Cross of Gold. Cross of GoldLauretta…

Academic

‘Powerful drama fused with its cerebral yet emotional writing’—Read Njabulo S Ndebele’s Foreword to the 60th anniversary edition of William ‘Bloke’ Modisane’s Blame Me on History

The JRB presents Njabulo S Ndebele’s Foreword to the new sixtieth-anniversary edition of William ‘Bloke’ Modisane’s Blame Me on History….

Africa

‘She sat at her dressing table, a plastic bag open on her lap, full of the hair that she had just scissored off her head’—Read an excerpt from Gothataone Moeng’s debut, Call and Response

The JRB presents an excerpt from Call and Response, the debut short story collection from Gothataone Moeng. Call and ResponseGothataone…

Academic

‘Bessie Head’s work jolted me awake … I had not thought it possible that a black woman could be a writer’—Read an excerpt from Barbara Boswell’s new book, And Wrote My Story Anyway

The JRB presents an excerpt from the Author’s Preface of And Wrote My Story Anyway: Black South African Women’s Novels…