South Africa, known as the Rainbow Nation, is a country you can travel through comfortably and still miss almost entirely. The cliché that “the people make a place” is actually very apt here — I’ve been greeted with enormous warmth throughout my travels in the country and struck by the kindness of strangers. The hallmark sites are hallmarks for a reason. Kruger National Park, Table Mountain, a Rovos Rail journey, and the Cape vineyards: these are all genuinely must-do things. The country’s history, though, is something most outsiders assume they already know, myself included, because it’s been covered internationally and taught in history and geography classes. What became clear to me after my first visit, and after going back almost annually since, is how much more there is to learn and understand about this place.
So when I’m not there, and sometimes when I am, I read. On one of my first trips to Cape Town, I was naive enough to think I had a general grasp of what had gone on here, and what was happening in the country’s past, present and future. Then two things happened. I visited the District Six Museum and learned a range of stories I hadn’t yet read anywhere. And I found Clarke’s Bookshop, a must-visit for anyone in Cape Town, which holds an incredible wealth of books on Africa and on South Africa in particular. That’s what turned me on to the more recent history of the country.
Thankfully, a great deal has been written about this place, from one of the most remarkable humans of the last century to the South African novelists and reporters working now. The Rainbow Nation is a beautiful country, and I wholeheartedly recommend taking the time to visit. But South Africa is far from most places, and my intent with this list, as with all the lists I’ve done, is to give you a sense of the history and the people from wherever you are. And I always love when readers leave their own recommendations in the comments.
Non-Fiction
Long Walk to Freedom – Nelson Mandela Mandela began secretly writing this while imprisoned on Robben Island in 1974. Other prisoners shrunk his six hundred pages into shorthand and smuggled it off the island in a study file, while the copy he buried in the prison yard was later found by guards. He finished it after his release in 1990.
Always Another Country – Sisonke Msimang A memoir of growing up in exile as the daughter of an ANC fighter and what it was like to return to a country that didn’t match what she imagined.
Gangster State – Pieter-Louis Myburgh A definitive account of how patronage networks hollowed out the ANC. It reads like a thriller and explains a lot about contemporary South African politics. It was so powerful that ANC Youth League supporters stormed the launch at Exclusive Books in Sandton and tore up copies.
A Man of Good Hope – Jonny Steinberg A Somali refugee’s route from Mogadishu to Cape Town, reconstructed over years of interviews. This one was tough for me not to finish in a sitting.
Somewhere Over the Rainbow: Travels in South Africa – Gavin Bell Bell crossed the country in the years right after the transition. It might be a little dated now, but like good travel writing, it’s a record of the time and the optimism of the moment.
Fiction
The Promise – Damon Galgut The story follows four funerals across four decades and a single promise made to a Black servant. It is a short but technically thrilling novel.
Ways of Dying – Zakes Mda A professional mourner works the funerals of a nameless township during the violence of the early nineties. Mda writes with a kind of comic surrealism which makes Ways unique.
Coconut – Kopano Matlwa The story follows two young Black women in post-apartheid Johannesburg, one in the northern suburbs and one working a weekend shift in a restaurant there. Matlwa wrote it while she was still in medical school.
Zoo City – Lauren Beukes A noir set in Johannesburg where the guilty are magically bound to an animal, which sounds ridiculous, but it works very well. It won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2011.
A Year in the Wild – James Hendry Two brothers take rookie ranger jobs in a game reserve and narrate the season in alternating emails home to family. It’s clever in its construction and a great behind-the-scenes look at the safari industry. There are two sequels.
Bonus (Ten was not enough, so consider these three as well):
Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
Country of My Skull by Antjie Krog
Enemy of the People by Adriaan Basson and Pieter du Toit
Also, if you're reading this on Substack and want to read more South African writers, I stumbled on this excellent list by Jen Thorpe. For the bookstores worth building a trip around, see Books & Bookstores.
If you liked this, there’s more where it came from. Scott Monaco opens a window somewhere new every week —travel essays, photography, cultural observations, and books worth reading. Once a week, sometimes more. Free to subscribe.
Coatzee's Disgrace, so heavy. Thanks for the list. I also like Nadine Gordimer's works.
Long Walk To Freedom is the kind of book that makes you sit with how much patience real change actually takes. Recommend!