South African London

South African London studies literary responses to London by exiled and émigré South Africans between 1948 and 2005 and traces the role London played in the development of South African letters.

When Nelson Mandela emerged from decades in jail to preach reconciliation, South Africans truly appeared a people reborn as the Rainbow Nation. Yet, a quarter of a century later, the country sank into bitter recriminations and rampant corruption under Jacob Zuma. Why did this happen, and how was hope betrayed? President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is seeking to heal these wounds, is due to lead the African National Congress into an election by May 2019. The ANC is hoping to claw back support lost to the opposition in the Zuma era. This book will shed light on voters' choices and analyze the election outcome as the results emerge. With chapters on all the major issues at stake--from education to land redistribution-- Understanding South Africa offers insights into Africa's largest and most diversified economy, closely tied to its neighbors' fortunes.

As an unemployed, poverty-stricken South African in London, Nicole began to pen her thoughts on her two-year experience into her diary. These rambles were to become a weekly column in the South African, the expat newspaper in London, after a chance meeting with the editor, Greg. Greg's job exposed him to lots of useful information such as how to get a fake visa and where to buy blackmarket boerewors. It seemed a shame to confine these insights to history's slosh bucket, so once back home, the two met up again. It was common sense to combine their experiences, put them all on paper and merge their knowledge into Take the Gap - a use-it or lose-it book packed full of advice for those adventurous souls who are considering a stint in London. Or, for those who have been and seen and want to reminisce, a first-class ticket back to the Big Smoke that you grew to love (like a pounding headache after a night down at the pub). This book is not a guide; guides are boring and go out of date. Anxious parents should not read this book!

The overwhelming challenge that South Africa faces, and has to date failed to address, is unemployment, which falls especially on African youths who were promised a better future after 1994. If the current unemployment challenge is not addressed, it will be impossible to sustainably lift many millions of people out of poverty. How South Africa Works reviews the country’s major economic achievements over the past two decades. Through numerous interviews with politicians, business leaders and analysts, it examines the challenges and opportunities across key productive sectors – including agriculture, manufacturing, services, and mining – illustrative of the policy challenges that leaders face. It scrutinises the social grant and education systems to understand if South Africa has established mechanisms for people not only to escape destitution but be ready to be employed, and identifies steps that some of South Africa’s most notable entrepreneurs have taken to build world-class enterprises. Recognising the essential challenge to cultivate more employers to employ people, How South Africa Works concludes by offering an agenda and active steps for greater competitiveness for government, business and labour.

Money from Nothing explores the dynamics surrounding South Africa's national project of financial inclusion—dubbed "banking the unbanked"—which aimed to extend credit to black South Africans as a critical aspect of broad-based economic enfranchisement. Through rich and captivating accounts, Deborah James reveals the varied ways in which middle- and working-class South Africans' access to credit is intimately bound up with identity, status-making, and aspirations of upward mobility. She draws out the deeply precarious nature of both the aspirations and the economic relations of debt which sustain her subjects, revealing the shadowy side of indebtedness and its potential to produce new forms of oppression and disenfranchisement in place of older ones. Money from Nothing uniquely captures the lived experience of indebtedness for those many millions who attempt to improve their positions (or merely sustain existing livelihoods) in emerging economies.