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South Africa

The covers of all the books featured in the list

12 Global Children’s Books for History Lovers

By Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp

In celebration of #WorldKidLitMonth, Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp recommends 12 international books for young readers with an interest in world history.

Various wooden letter blocks

Photo by Amador Loureiro on Unsplash

9 Writers to Read on International Mother Language Day

By Words Without Borders

We highlight 9 writers working in their heritage languages, from Galician and Cebuano to Guaraní and Kaaps.

Multimedia

This Language Called Kaaps: An Introduction

By Olivia M. Coetzee

Language is more than just a method of communication. It is about the ability to lay down roots, to settle into an identity, to have a place in history, in the present, and in the future. Language is…

Children of the Xam

By Khadija Tracey Heeger

Watch Khadija Tracey Heeger read her poem “Children of the Xam” in the original Kaaps.Poet Khadija Tracey Heeger honors a rich and complex heritage.Between the vertebrae of the Langeberg…

Translated from Kaaps by Olivia M. Coetzee & Khadija Tracey Heeger

Multilingual

The Wind Blows Where It Wishes and You Hear Its Sound

By Andre Trantraal

It should be patently obvious to anyone but the most resolutely blind that he is not aching with impatience to go to the house of the Lord.

Translated from Kaaps by the author

Grayscale image of a stack lottery scratch cards fanned out

scratch cards

By Shirmoney Rhode

and that which has no use will be discarded

Translated from Kaaps by Andre Trantraal

Multilingual

Snake’s Hill

By Olivia M. Coetzee

JB was the one to start that fire inside my head.

Translated from Kaaps by the author

MultimediaMultilingual

In the Shadows

By Olivia M. Coetzee

The rhythmic flow of Shadow Heights was something she often missed and longed for while she was in Joburg.

Translated from Kaaps by the author

Global Blackness: Black Writers in Translation

By Eric M. B. Becker

Engaging the evolving dialogue that broadens definitions of global Blackness.

Coloureds

By The Trantraal Brothers

© The Trantraal Brothers. By arrangement with the authors. Translation © 2017 by the Trantraal Brothers. All rights reserved.

Translated by the author

Comics and Graphic Narratives: A Global Cultural Commons

By Dominic Davies

Comics themselves have a role to play in the construction of a more globally aware social consciousness.

Landscape image of Karoo, Beaufort West, South Africa

Photo by Juanita Swart on Unsplash

Poison Karoo

By Etienne van Heerden

Perhaps I will poison a petrol engineer’s coffee.

Translated from Afrikaans by Isobel Dixon

From “Thirty Nights in Amsterdam”

By Etienne van Heerden

“A bicycle, a bike,” I nag at MaOlivier, and she has to phone around, first my old Snoozebrother on the farm, then the husband of my old Pretoria sister.

Translated from Afrikaans by Michiel Heyns

A farm in Vioolsdrift, Northern Cape, South Africa.

Photo by South African Tourism Flickr

From “Agaat”

By Marlene van Niekerk

The first time you slept with Jak was the day after he came to declare his intentions to your parents.

Translated from Afrikaans by Michiel Heyns

The Last Farm Novel?: An Interview with Michiel Heyns

because Afrikaans literature is such a relatively small body of work that this will be a powerful addition to that body.