Latest titles
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Changing Theory
This book is an original, systematic, and radical attempt at decolonizing critical theory, drawing on linguistic concepts from 16 languages from Asia, Africa, the Arab world, and South America. ...
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Foundational African Writers
A collection of essays celebrating the centenaries of Peter Abrahams, Noni Jabavu, Sibusiso Nyembezi and Es’kia Mphahlele, all born in South Africa in 1919. These foundational writers produced fiction, criticism, journalism and life writing, and their oeuvres are crucial to the genealogies of modern African and diasporic black literature. ...
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Worrier State
Worrier State looks at the pervasive culture of fear in South Africa asking How do South Africans feel about living under conditions of extreme fear, which is related to gross inequality, and how does the media make us feel? ...
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In the Balance
This timeous book presents a compelling analysis of the need, conditions and possibilities for a universal basic income (UBI) in South Africa and globally. It explores the vexing questions a UBI raises about the relationship of paid work to social rights, and about the role of the state in contemporary capitalism. ...
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Ukufa kukaShaka
Ukufa kukaShaka is a historical drama in isiZulu. Based on the events surrounding the assassination of Shaka, the mighty Zulu king, by his two half-brothers, Dingane and Mhlangana, aided and abetted by his paternal aunt, Mkabayi, in 1828. In the play Elliot Zondi explores the classic theme of the tragic hero’s fatal flaws. ...
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Senkatana
Senkatana is a Sesotho play based on a Basotho legend about a monster that swallowed all the people and animals except for one pregnant woman. She gave birth to a boy, Senkatana, when a young man, killed the monster. The grateful people made him their king, but soon after he was killed to settle a family score. ...
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Motswasele II
In the Setswana play Motswasele II, the first historical drama written by a Botswanan author, LD Raditladi explores the concept of bogosi (chieftainship) through the characters of two powerful men. The play highlights the need for power to be dispensed judiciously and for conflicts to be resolved where they arise. ...
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Pelong ya ka
Pelong ya ka is a volume of Sesotho essays and stories on personal themes, first published in 1962. The author, an expert on African folklore, was also regarded as a gifted exponent Southern Sesotho. The pieces in this collection are narrative in style and largely autobiographical. ...
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Inkondlo kaZulu
A collection of isiZulu poems by BW Vilakazi, known as the ‘father of Nguni literature’, first published in 1935. It contains superb nature poems and also reflects Vilakazi’s contact with Western modernity; he was both a traditional imbongi (bard) and forward-looking poet who fused Western poetic forms with Zulu izibongo (praise poetry). ...
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Dintshontsho tsa bo-Juliuse Kesara
Dintshontsho tsa bo-Juliuse Kesara is a translation into Setswana of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, by the renowned South African thinker, writer and linguist Sol T. Plaatje ...
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News
Happy 100th Birthday to Wits University Press!
It is 100 years since the first book was published by the ‘University of the Witwatersrand Press’ on 10 April 1922. It is 100 years since the first book was published by the ‘University of the Witwatersrand Press’ on 10 April 1922. Called The National Resources of South Africa, it was written by RA Lehfeldt, […]
Playwright and novelist Nadia Davids’ “spell-binding” play, What Remains wins the Olive Schreiner Prize for Drama for 2020
Wits University Press is delighted to announce that Nadia Davids’ play, What Remains: A Play in One Act, has won the English Academy of Southern Africa’s Olive Schreiner Prize for Drama (2020). The Olive Schreiner Prize for drama forms part of a larger annual competition in creative writing of English expression, which includes prose and […]
Bhekizizwe (Bheki) Peterson, a great South African intellectual has passed
Wits University Press is saddened to hear and share the news about the passing of Bhekizizwe (Bheki) Peterson on 16 June 2021. Born in 1961 in Alexandra Township, Johannesburg, Bheki Peterson was a great South African intellectual, Professor of African Literature at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and talented artist. He published extensively on […]
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Current and forthcoming
Latest from our BOOKSLive blog
- Don’t miss a celebration of the life and work of Solomon T Plaatje with the launch of a new book at Wits
- Don’t miss the launch of Fees Must Fall: Student Revolt, Decolonisation and Governance in South Africa
- Night of the playwrights: John Kani chats to Craig Higginson, Harry Kalmer and Neil Coppen at Love Books
- Don’t miss the launch of Sol Plaatje’s Native Life in South Africa: Past and Present at Clarke’s Bookshop
- Don’t miss the launch of Leon de Kock’s Losing the Plot: Crime, Reality and Fiction in Postapartheid Writing at Love Books
- 2016 Mail & Guardian Literary Festival celebrates the life and work of Sol Plaatje
- Join Mark Sanders, Hlonipha Mokoena and Dilip Menon for the launch of Learning Zulu: A Secret History of Language in South Africa
- A lively and wide-ranging analysis of postapartheid South African writing: Losing the Plot by Leon de Kock
- Don’t miss Thiven Reddy discussing nationalism and the geography of power after apartheid at WiSER
- Thiven Reddy examines post-apartheid politics in South Africa, Settler Colonialism and the Failures of Liberal Democracy