Published by Umuzi.

This collection of short stories by a South African master of the form must give enormous pleasure to convinced admirers of Paton and to people meeting his short fiction for the first time. Though all stories in the collection are not equally good, “Ha’penny”, “Debbie Go Home” and “A Drink in the Passage” rank amongst the best stories written in South Africa. All are of interest, and constitute a history of this country from before the beginning of the apartheid era until Paton’s death in 1988.

One of Paton’s strongest impulses was to help English speakers to understand Afrikaners – specifically Afrikaner men. “Life for a Life” shows a policeman who kills a suspect because there are no limits to his power over Coloured workers. “A Drink in the Passage” tells of an Afrikaner in whom the generous impulse to hospitality is at odds with the taboo on inviting a black man into his house. “The Perfidy of Maatland”, presumably written after the establishment of apartheid universities for black people, presents an Afrikaner who believes in educational segregation, but is committed to justice and the pursuit of learning. This rather programmatic piece is historically of great interest since it demonstrates Paton’s understanding of the split in the volk between the educated, liberalising group and the implacable officials of the state.

(Kwela Books)

According to AmaZulu's blurb its author "weaves fact and fiction, history and myth, to create a compelling tribute to the might of Shaka".

AmaZulu certainly starts promisingly, not least because it's cleanly written, and initially one's inclined to forgive the flash-forwards at the beginning of each section that do little more than break up the linear narrative. But the early promise proves false and before long we find ourselves back in the never-never-land of TV's Shaka Zulu, more myth than history.

The figure of King Shaka KaSenzangakhona is ripe for a fictional treatment incorporating recent historical research. But no, "a key source for this novel," according to Golightly's acknowledgements, "is E.A. Ritter's much maligned Shaka Zulu."

Johannesburg: Penguin.

Adam, a middle-aged white man, edged out of urban South Africa by the loss of his job to a young black man, retreats to a ramshackle cottage in the Karoo. Next door lives an elderly Afrikaner, who at first avoids him but eventually proves desperate for company. Adam later meets Canning, who remembers him with gratitude because of advice given in their schooldays. He begins to spend weekends at Canning’s estate, which the latter visits regularly with his beautiful, enigmatic black wife. The estate, intended by Canning’s father to become a game farm, is an African earthly paradise – river, forest, mountains, kloof – and an old lion, a figure of the hated father.

Canning’s wife, Baby, on whom he depends emotionally, begins an affair with Adam. Canning seems unaware of this, and confides to Adam his plan for revenge on his dead father: the earthly paradise will be destroyed and replaced by a golf estate. This involves bribery of the mayor of the town, and of higher-level officials, and Canning tries to involve Adam in this. It emerges that Canning himself is no more than a pawn (though one who will be richly rewarded), and international organised crime is involved.