Non Fiction Authors From South Africa

"It is difficult to reach consensus on a definition of racism, but most people agree that it starts with generalizations. It involves projecting the attributes of an individual onto a group as a whole on the basis of race, with pejorative connotations. Heidi Holland's narrative is a classic example of this kind of racist thinking."

"The story of [Zuma's] actions on that fateful night last year is a sad reflection on the former deputy president's morals and code of conduct. Zuma is not fit to lead a country where women's rights are high on the agenda, where the fight against Aids is, or should be, an urgent national priority and where the protection of the weak and vulnerable is the duty of the powerful. South Africa deserves a president who can lead by example. Jacob Zuma has shown he cannot do that."

"'I needed help in understanding how events in Mugabe's life, including his childhood, had impacted on his internal narrative.' By the time Mugabe was 10, his father had left home and his older brother had died. 'Mugabe has a thin skin and shaky self-image. When rejected or humiliated, he turns to revenge. His relationship with the British government has the intensity of a family feud.'"

"I think he granted me the interview because he feels he is getting old and it's time to put certain things on the record. But he expects to win the election and probably will.'"

"'I had been waiting in Harare for five weeks and had been vetted and grilled. In the end I received a call telling me I should be at State House in half an hour. I arrived at 10am and three hours later His Excellency - "HE" as everyone calls him - received me.'"

"“It was the great unsolved mystery of her field, why the things that make us happiest also make us unhappiest. Like alcohol. And family. And spouses. And children.”"

"It is in Pompeii, in fact, that the novel's deepest irony is found: the humans preserved after the ancient Mount Vesuvius eruption are afforded greater respect and dignity than the more recent victims of settler colonialism."

"The dual narratives converge in fascinating ways. Vita's chapters wrestle more explicitly with the function of art in post-apartheid South Africa and how inherited guilt shapes an approach to the subjects of her documentary films."

"Ostensibly structured in the form of interchanging letters between middle-aged Vita living in Mudgee and her former benefactor, an elderly American named Royce, the novel gives way to more conventional storytelling as the narrative progresses, exploring how art, and the individual artist, can reckon with a brutal colonial past."

"We’re not beholden to the political whims of a billionaire owner. No-one can tell us what not to say or what not to report."

"Allowing as many people as possible to read quality journalism from around the world – especially people who live in places where the free press is in peril."

"We’re not desperately seeking your attention for its own sake: we pursue the stories that our editorial team deems important, and believe are worthy of your time."

""Life After Truth by Ceridwen Dovey review – lifestyles of the remarkably privileged". The Guardian. 12 November 2020. Retrieved 5 April 2025."

"Dovey also loosely bases another character on Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, who was also at college when she was, but the narrative skirts around one Frederick Reese. Why exactly he inspires such loathing among his peers is not given much airplay."

""Just as the nominations for all the categories were finished to our utter astonishment Babette’s face filled the screen again and it was announced that she had WON a special CHAIRMAN’S AWARD for her work with Persona Doll Training. Shocked, my brother, Peter Brown and I approached the stage to collect her award."

"Babette Brown came to the UK after she was forced into political exile due to her opposition to Apartheid. The author of several books on early learning and child development, at the age of 70, she went on to found Persona Dolls, making dolls of many different ethnicities and types, who would tell their stories through a teacher. Children were then encouraged to offer advice and solutions to the experiences a doll describes. This practical and non-threatening approach to dealing with difficult issues has proved especially effective with children. Her charity, established in the 2000s, produce the dolls in South Africa. Thousands of teachers globally are now trained to use the Persona Dolls approach."

"While teaching again, Brown soon realised that the same racism that she had fought in her home country was also prevalent in the UK. This was the awakening of a new goal – to fight the racism, sexism, and classism that was deeply entrenched in the British education system and wider society."

"So many of us have loved her dearly, been inspired by her virtues, benefited from her friendship, kindness and generosity, and regarded her as a trailblazer in so many things – her stand against apartheid, racism and injustice of all kinds; her service to education and gender rights; her compassion for humanity. She is in our hearts and thoughts and will be remembered as a fine human being as a very dear friend."

"It was more about the different cultures rather than about colour but we have managed to work through that and we are still learning"

"I talk to the person (guest) behind the art. Not about what you do, but who you are. And I think some of these women have been longing for a space where people can be interested in who they are outside of the drama of fame"

"I hope each question I ask my guests, viewers can ask themselves so they can stop and think and consider their own journeys"

"Although she didn’t win we were very satisfied, simply with the nomination, and we happily relaxed with another glass of wine content that Babette would have been so proud that her anti-racist work with young children, through Persona Doll Training, was being acknowledged.""

"The conversations are set under the covering theme of Love, Loss and Life, because these are broad topics. Guests get to share their experiences with loss, life and what they have learnt"

"I think subconsciously seeing my grandmother work so tirelessly and being a happy woman influenced me to think that I can do a bunch of things and demand more out of life for myself"

"My grandmother was able to raise 11 kids, providing for them while also holding down different jobs (as a domestic worker and in a shop)"

"There is a lot of pressure (in society) to be more than what you are and, in the process, we are not having conversations that matter"

"Globalization represents the tragic reversal of all that Keynes hoped to achieve at Bretton Woods: an international framework that would end nationalisms, international trade competition, high levels of domestic unemployment, low levels of aggregate demand and the consequent debt deflation. It was an attempt by Keynes and other economists to prevent the return of nationalisms and fascism by developing policies that increased domestic demand not by boosting exports and raising demand externally but by raising living standards at home: an inter-national system that would restore policy autonomy to democratic states and stability to the world’s economies."

"In other words, we can – and to survive, we must – transform and even end within the next ten years the failed system of capitalism that now threatens to collapse earth’s life support systems and with them, human civilisation. We must replace that economic system with one that respects boundaries and limits; one that nurtures ‘soils, aquifers, rainfall, ice, the pattern of winds and currents, pollinators, biological abundance and diversity’;6 one that delivers social and economic justice."

"The reality is that, today, all states are embedded in, governed by and subject to the international system of mobile, volatile, private financial markets – a system that has indebted and impoverished the many and raised political tensions, as reflected in the rise of nationalism. Millions of voters understand the nature of globalization, even while dimly aware of the monetary, fiscal or trade theories on which the system is built. This public awareness explains why some electorates have backed the election of “strong men” – politicians who offer “protection” from the very global markets that have stripped economies of jobs and income, while enriching rentier capitalists."

"Social democracy’s blind spot for the international financial architecture and its power over domestic policy-making has had other consequences. Not only does neglect of the international system let globalized capital markets off the regulatory hook, but globalization has also led to the rise of economic nationalisms."

"It is about what is happening within the group of people you have chosen to go with. The teams who failed, very few of them where actually stopped by the mountain. Even the ones caught in the storm they made complacent mistakes that made them vulnerable when things went wrong and then the teams that succeed it’s about the set of intangible tools a real clarity of purpose for your team"

"That thing you did 10 years ago that was significant everyone is doing it now. The thing you did a year ago, you’ve been copied"

"Mt. Everest is now the wealthy executive’s midlife crises."

"Reft of a physical place in this world we can call home, exile makes us love the idea of South Africa. We are bottle-fed the dream: South Africa is not simply about non-racialism and equality but something much more profound."

"There are so many people in South Africa, within the country, who are muzzled. And there are others who may not be muzzled within South Africa but whose passports are withdrawn, people like Bishop Desmond Tutu-a very important voice; you know, a writer is nothing compared with him. He is a big figure, a real leader, and he can't go abroad and speak. So I think that those of us who can, as long as we can, we have to use the opportunity."

"Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the South African anti-apartheid icon, has died at the age of 90. In 1984 Desmond Tutu won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work fighting to end white minority rule in South Africa. After the fall of apartheid, Archbishop Tutu chaired the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where he pushed for restorative justice. He was a leading voice for human rights and peace around the world. He opposed the Iraq War and condemned the Israeli occupation in Palestine, comparing it to apartheid South Africa. We re-air two interviews Archbishop Tutu did on Democracy Now!, as well as two speeches on the Iraq War and the climate crisis."

"Nothing epitomizes Desmond Tutu's radicalism (using the word radical, as he likes to say, in the original sense of getting to the root of an issue) more than his views on the relationship of his faith to the faith of others."

"If the reasons for Desmond Tutu becoming one of the world's most prominent advocates of faith-based social justice and religious tolerance could be reduced to a single succinct statement, it would be this: his fierce and uncompromising determination to tell the truth as he sees it."

"The first thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history."

"When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said "Let us pray." We closed our eyes. When we opened them, we had the Bible and they had the land."

"The U.N. is as effective as its member states allow it to be."

"There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in."

"When people say that the Bible and politics don't mix, I ask them which Bible they are reading."

"Isn’t it noteworthy in the parable of the Good Samaritan that Jesus does not give a straightforward answer to the question "Who is my neighbor?" (Luke 10:29). Surely he could have provided a catalog of those whom the scribe could love as himself as the law required. He does not. Instead, he tells a story. It is as if Jesus wanted among other things to point out that life is a bit more complex; it has too many ambivalences and ambiguities to allow always for a straightforward and simplistic answer. This is a great mercy, because in times such as our own — times of change when many familiar landmarks have shifted or disappeared — people are bewildered; they hanker after unambiguous, straightforward answers. We appear to be scared of diversity in ethnicities, in religious faiths, in political and ideological points of view. We have an impatience with anything and anyone that suggests there might just be another perspective, another way of looking at the same thing, another answer worth exploring. There is a nostalgia for the security in the womb of a safe sameness, and so we shut out the stranger and the alien; we look for security in those who can provide answers that must be unassailable because no one is permitted to dissent, to question. There is a longing for the homogeneous and an allergy against the different, the other. Now Jesus seems to say to the scribe, "Hey, life is more exhilarating as you try to work out the implications of your faith rather than living by rote, with ready-made second-hand answers, fitting an unchanging paradigm to a shifting, changing, perplexing, and yet fascinating world." Our faith, our knowledge that God is in charge, must make us ready to take risks, to be venturesome and innovative; yes, to dare to walk where angels might fear to tread."

"Some of my friends are skeptical when they hear me say this, but I am by nature a person who dislikes confrontation. I have consciously sought during my lifetime to emulate my mother, whom our family knew as a gentle “comforter of the afflicted.” However, when I see innocent people suffering, pushed around by the rich and the powerful, then, as the prophet Jeremiah, says, if I try to keep quiet it is as if the word of God burned like a fire in my breast. I feel compelled to speak out, sometimes to even argue with God over how a loving creator can allow this to happen. In the Church of Sant'Egido in Rome, home of an extraordinary community of lay people devoted to working with the poor, there is an old crucifix that portrays Christ without arms. When I asked about its importance to the community, I was told that it shows how God relies on us to do God's work in the world. Without us, God has no eyes, without us, God has no ears; without us, God has no arms or hands. God relies on us. Won't you join other people of faith in becoming God's partners in the world?"

"It is for real that injustice and oppression will not have the last word. There was a time when Hitler looked like he was going to vanquish all of Europe, and where is he now?"

"You and I are created for transcendence, laughter, caring. God deliberately did not make the world perfect, for God is looking for you and me to be fellow workers with God."

"Sometimes you want to whisper in God's ear, "God, we know you are in charge, but why don't you make it slightly more obvious?""

"Injustice and oppression will never prevail. Those who are powerful have to remember the litmus test that God gives to the powerful: what is your treatment of the poor, the hungry, the voiceless? And on the basis of that, God passes judgment. We should put out a clarion call to the government of the people of Israel, to the Palestinian people and say: peace is possible, peace based on justice is possible. We will do all we can to assist you to achieve this peace, because it is God's dream, and you will be able to live amicably together as sisters and brothers."

"People are scared in this country, to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful — very powerful. Well, so what? For goodness sake, this is God's world! We live in a moral universe. The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosevic, and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end they bit the dust."