Amabookabooka

AV Education — Sara-Jayne Makwala-King is the queen of Late Night Radio. She is also the author of the riveting memoir Killing Karoline, which documents her journey from Karoline to Sara-Jayne back to Karoline and then finally - and triumphantly - to Sara-Jayne once again. It’s a powerful and poignant story about an affair between a black man and a white woman in apartheid South Africa, a primal wound, identity, adoption, belonging, sort of belonging, not really belonging, rejection, loss, hair trauma, the pencil test, race and racism. The book, like Sarah-Jane herself, is smart, thoughtful and authentic. Sarah-Jane gives us a sneak preview of the new book she’s working on … and we are desperate for her to finish it so we can read it.

AV Education — Author’s Lockdown: T minus 18: Today’s guest is one of the best novelists to come out of South Africa - and if you don’t believe us ask Gary Shteyngart - that’s what the Super Sad True Love Story author said of Imraan Coovadia, adding that his prose is 'charming, clever and sly'. Enver Eleven, the central figure in Imraan's latest novel A Spy in Time, has a very useful machine... one which could save the world right now.

AV Education — T - 19 Days to Freedom. If crime writing had a king it would probably be Lee Child. If it had a mayor, though, it would definitely be the award-winning, best-selling Deon Meyer, who is today’s guest on Amabookabooka: The Quarantine Chronicles. Deon has written 13 novels which have been published in more than 40 countries. His 2017 book Fever imagines the world devastated by an infectious disease that spreads rapidly and catastrophically, before preventive measures can be developed. Sound familiar?

AV Education — n our second episode of Amabookabooka: The quarantine chronicles we interview ‘Sup surfing diva, beauty therapist and the world’s only environmental romance author, Melissa Volker, who weaves romance, suspense and eco-fiction into nail-biting plots and unputdownable novels. Spoiler alert: 10 hours into the lockdown she hadn't yet run out of toilet paper!

AV Education — Welcome to Amabookabooka: The quarantine chronicles. Today’s episode features author, journalist, satirist, and social media superstar Gus Silber whose latest book, Electric Graffiti, is a collection of his meaningful musings, wise witticisms, dashing descriptions, poignant ponderings and gentle observations about life, which at the moment, he says, can be summed up in one phrase: My Fok, Marelize.

AV Education — Today’s Amabookabooka guest is Tom to my Jerry; Moriarty to my Holmes; Lex Luthor to my Superman; Newman to my Seinfeld; and Gupta to my Gordhan.

AV Education — Amabookabooka's Jonathan Ancer talks about his book Spy: Uncovering Craig Williamson.

AV Education — Today's episode of Amabookabooka was recorded in 2015 and features Imraan Coovadia, author of The Wedding, Green-Eyed Thieves, High Low In-between, and The Institute for Taxi Poetry and Tales of the Metric. Imraan, a UCT professor, has won all the South African literary awards that matter.

AV Education — Today's Amabookabooka guest is Prof Jonathan Jansen - a husband, father, academic, leader, joke-teller, peace maker, columnist and compelling story-teller. He is also a teacher – and his books – and his written a lot of books - are all about lessons.

AV Education — Today's author is Sue Brown whose memoir, The Twinkling of An Eye, ​is one of the most difficult books you will ever read, but you should read it because you get to meet Chris Brown, a remarkable young man - and hear about a mother's heroic fight against her son's rare brain tumour.

AV Education — Today we deviate from Amabookabooka to bring you amabike-a-bike-a - well, actually it's a book about bikes so it's an Amabooka-bike-a episode. On Your Bike is a guide to mountain biking written by the Whitfield Brothers ... Chris and Tim.

AV Education — Jennifer Friedman is the Queen of the Free State, she’s also Mamselle X, heroine of the French Resistance, and a vegetable-hating, frog-catching, dog-loving, piano playing adventurer.

AV Education — Before Lesley Smailes left South Africa to go on a gap year to the United States her mother told her not to get married or join a cult. She did both.

AV Education — Marcus Low, former Treatment Action Campaign activist and author of Asylum, is today's guest on Amabookabooka

AV Education — Today's author is Sara-Jayne King, a journalist, talk radio host and adoptee who has written the riveting memoir Killing Karoline.

AV Education — Today’s guest is anti-apartheid activist and jailbird, who while he was in prison kept his own jail bird – a beautiful green and blue-tailed lovebird who ate out of his mouth and sat on his shoulder. Raymond Suttner was imprisoned for more than 11 years. His struggle memoir, Inside Apartheid’s Prison, has been re-issued with an introduction dealing with his more recent life outside the ANC

AV Education — This week's episode of Amabookabooka features Stanley Manong, who has written If We Must Die - a compelling memoir about life as a soldier in the ANC’s army. This episode was recorded in 2015.

AV Education — This is a special edition of Amabookabooka – it’s from a previous podcast series we produced called Extraordinary Lives. This episode, recorded two years ago, was never released and we’re releasing it now to coincide with the 109th anniversary of the birth of Bram Fischer – the South African prime minster we should have had.

AV Education — Author Jacqui L’Ange’s outstanding debut novel, The Seed Thief, is a gripping love story that bursts with spirituality, mythology and ecology – and a family secret.

AV Education — The author featured in today's episode of Amabookabooka is Christa Kuljian, whose new book Darwin’s Hunch joins 26 other excellent South African works of non-fiction on the longlist for the prestigious Sunday Times Alan Paton Award. Christa tells Amabookabooka about her journey to writing – from mid-career shift, to Ruth First Lecture in 2010 to publishing Sanctuary in 2013 and now Darwin’s Hunch.