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APRIL '24 LIBRARY REVIEWS

PHOTOGRAPHY / ART (DIASPORA)

As We See It by Aida Amoako, 2023
R745 from The Book Lounge

As We See It is a collection of contemporary black existence captured on film and canvas. As each set of portraits is introduced by a new artist, the understanding of identity shifts. The idea of blackness proliferates before our eyes as we see how it intersects with other identities held by the artists. The images range from fashion, and beauty, to the ways in which political and even personal memory will inscribe itself on the present moment. There are images of everyday life, and then there are images that transform the world into a fantastical playground, or elevate the mundane into something otherworldly. A collection of work that refuses to define the very thing it calls itself, and oh what a wonderful thing that is. FKK

ART / BOTANY (SOUTH AFRICA)

Grootbos Florilegium by Sean Privett, 2023
R2500 from The Book Lounge

As Professor Richard M. Cowling notes in the foreword to this covetable book, “The Cape [Floristic Region] is both a museum and a cradle of diversity.” Helping to document and conserve its incredible plant treasury is the Grootbos Florilegium Project – based at the eponymous nature reserve near Stanford – and its botanical art collection is exquisitely documented in these pages. Part botanical record, part tribute to nature’s beauty, each of these works has been painted over the last few years by one of the internationally renowned botanical artists who have been invited to stay at Grootbos while painting their works. A simply gorgeous collector’s piece that rewards repeated viewings and readings. RA

ART / BOTANY (SOUTH AFRICA)

Grootbos Florilegium by Sean Privett, 2023
R2500 from The Book Lounge

As Professor Richard M. Cowling notes in the foreword to this covetable book, “The Cape [Floristic Region] is both a museum and a cradle of diversity.” Helping to document and conserve its incredible plant treasury is the Grootbos Florilegium Project – based at the eponymous nature reserve near Stanford – and its botanical art collection is exquisitely documented in these pages. Part botanical record, part tribute to nature’s beauty, each of these works has been painted over the last few years by one of the internationally renowned botanical artists who have been invited to stay at Grootbos while painting their works. A simply gorgeous collector’s piece that rewards repeated viewings and readings. RA

LEGACY FICTION (GHANA)

Two Thousand Seasons by Ayi Kwei Armah, 1973
R800 from Amazon

This classic novel was first published in 1972 and highlights Africans engaged in fighting for their freedom. Through the reconstruction of a thousand years of African history, Armah shows Africans living as people in a seemingly unending cycle of the horrors of both internal and external subjugation. He shows how the schisms within African societies that allowed for colonial destruction are in part of their own making, and includes warnings that might enable them to free themselves of the road to continued destruction. LM

BIOGRAPHY (SOUTH AFRICA)

Winnie & Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage by Jonny Steinberg, 2023
R360 from The Book Lounge

A stunningly accomplished biography of the lives of Nelson Mandela and Winnie Madikezela-Mandela, told through the prism of their marriage. It’s compulsory reading for anyone interested in how South Africa’s democracy was forged, and how the fault lines of that history are playing out in the country’s present. This is no hagiography – author Jonny Steinberg has included the bad with the good. Many readers will feel the shock of revelation about the all too human frailties of Winnie and Nelson, but ultimately be enriched by the details of the roles they played in bringing South Africa to a necessarily compromised freedom. CR

BIOGRAPHY (SOUTH AFRICA)

Winnie & Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage by Jonny Steinberg, 2023
R360 from The Book Lounge

A stunningly accomplished biography of the lives of Nelson Mandela and Winnie Madikezela-Mandela, told through the prism of their marriage. It’s compulsory reading for anyone interested in how South Africa’s democracy was forged, and how the fault lines of that history are playing out in the country’s present. This is no hagiography – author Jonny Steinberg has included the bad with the good. Many readers will feel the shock of revelation about the all too human frailties of Winnie and Nelson, but ultimately be enriched by the details of the roles they played in bringing South Africa to a necessarily compromised freedom. CR

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