compiled and edited  by Mthobisi Mqadi.

The Creative INK Anthology (Izimbongi Zesimanje) book is another living tale among the townships of Inanda, Ntuzuma and Kwa-Mashu. Compiled by the well known Durban based poet and activist, Mthobisi Mqadi, the book consists of short stories, essays, poems and motivational words written in IsiZulu and English. All the writing in book Creative INK Anthology is written by the youth of INK Area. The Creative INK Writers are following in the footsteps of many respected writers  who were born in the area, like Mandla Langa (The Lost Colours of the Chameleon), Dr JL Dube (Ujeqe, the body servant of King Shaka) Sita Gandhi  (Memoirs of Sita Gandhi) and many other writers who have lived in the INK Area.  All the members of the Creative INK Writers were born in the area and who else better to tell their stories?  In the book, the Creative INK Writers go the extra mile writing about their day-to-day living conditions through empowering, compassionate social stories that the wider community does not know about.

Compiled by: Robin Malan and Ashraf Johaardien

In a world of sexual categorisation, undoubtedly the gay and lesbian categories are the most controversial. The book Yes I am, compiled by Robin Malan and Ashraf Johaardien, takes the reader on a journey of what it is like to be gay in contemporary South African society. Yes I am! tackles issues such as coming-out, finding-out and encounters faced by South African gay men. Interestingly the contributors to the book are South African gay men of different backgrounds and ages, all telling their stories in different ways. Questions such as, 'How can a man sleep with another man?'; 'How can a man be born a "man" and later change to being gay?' are tackled. Yes I am! is different from other books about gays in the sense that the book encourages a change of attitude towards gay men through the stories told. The book features writing by, among others, Drummond Marais, an award winning actor, singer and theatre director who in his short story 'Coming out to my wife', tells the story of the many gay men still living a lie with their wives, all in the name of keeping their parents happy. Other writers also featured in the compilation are Jonny Steinberg ('My first HIV Test') and Pieter Dirk Uys('Fun and Fear in 1966'). The Foreword to Yes I am! is by Edwin Cameron of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. He writes: '[The book] speaks out loudly and clearly in a continent where silence, quite literally, still entails death. May its life flourish, and may it foster life elsewhere.'

A Collection of short stories and opinion pieces  by Prithiraj Ramkisun Dullay.

The year is 1978.

The apartheid machine is grinding all in its path.

Steve Biko was brutally murdered a year before.

Nelson Mandela is in his 17th year on Robben Island.

Strini Moodley was in the 3rd year of his  six-year imprisonment term on Robben Island.

It was at this time that life was becoming untenable for a young activist teacher, Prithiraj Ramkisun Dullay, simply because he believed that teaching was a subversive activity, and endeavoured to live out his belief in truth and freedom without fear.

As a consequence of his political activity, Pritz and his family were suddenly thrust into exile, to  a strange land just a few degrees south of the Arctic Circle, a land that will become their home for 14 years… 

The stories  of this enforced departure,  and his eventual return to his homeland when Mandela was released, as well as the riveting stories of Pritz’s growing up development, are all told with immediacy and import in SALT WATER RUNS IN MY VEINS. 

The first thing to strike one about this handy, attractive book is the interesting mission statement from the publisher. Boldly they assert (which is music to our ears at KZN Literary Tourism), “Whereabouts Press is dedicated to publishing books that will enlighten a traveler to the soul of a place. By bringing a country’s stories to the English-speaking reader, we hope to convey its culture through literature”. Other Traveler’s Literary Companions which the publisher has commissioned cover countries as divergent as Cuba and Vietnam, Israel and Japan; together with the cities Prague and Amsterdam.  These, then, are literary companions for the “curious traveler”, the type who likes to read and look at the same time. 

Appropriately, the book starts with a map of South Africa which is followed by a Preface written by the editors. In it they discuss their choices, making the comment that the history of South Africa is one of contested spaces and thus the literature that springs from it will no doubt reflect this. They have chosen a mixture of selections from old and new writers over the past 100 years: from Olive Schreiner (and, sadly, not an extract from that most evocative of ‘landscape’ novels The Story of an African Farm), to Herman Charles Bosman, to Richard Rive and Alan Paton. Most ‘chapters’ are short extracts which give a taste of a place and a time; except for the long piece from Mphahlele entitled “Mrs Plum”. The volume, by the way, is dedicated to this writer. Each author represented is summed up in a short biographical sketch on the title page which is a quick, handy way to contextualise the writer, era and region.