Witsies with the writing edge
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Catch up on recent book awards and publications by alumni.
Awards
Khamr: The Makings of a Waterslam
by Jamil F Khan
Jacana
2020
Jamil F Khan (MA 2018) won the Best Non-Fiction Biography category of the 2021 Humanities and Social Sciences Award for Khamr: The Makings of a Waterslam. It is a true story that maps Khan’s experience of living with an alcoholic father and the direct conflict of having to perform a Muslim life that taught him that nearly everything he called home was forbidden. A detailed account from his childhood to early adulthood, he lays bare the experience of living in a so-called middle-class Coloured home in a neighbourhood called Bernadino Heights in Kraaifontein, a suburb to the north of Cape Town. His memories are overwhelmed by the constant discord that was created by the chaos and dysfunction of his alcoholic home and a co-dependent relationship with his mother, while trying to manage the daily routine of his parents keeping up appearances and him maintaining scholastic excellence. He said: “It was always my goal to make queer, Black people feel seen and represented through this work and many have confirmed that it is exactly what Khamr did for them.” Khan is currently reading towards his PhD in the field of Critical Diversity Studies at Wits.
The Night Trains: Moving Mozambican Miners to and from South Africa, circa 1902-1955
by Charles van Onselen
Jonathan Ball
2019
Professor Charles van Onselen (BA 1971) was awarded the 2021 Academy of Science of South Africa Humanities Book Award for The Night Trains. He is a research professor in the Faculty of Humanities at the University or Pretoria. For more than 50 years, privately operated trains travelled by night between Ressano Garcia, on the Mozambique border, and Booysens station, Johannesburg. The Night Trains examines the largely neglected social and political economy of these workers, bringing into focus the human suffering involved in the economic partnership between the mining houses and the railways. Professor Van Onselen’s previous work includes The Seed is Mine: The Life of Kas Maine, a South African Sharecropper, 1894-1985; The Fox and the Flies; and Masked Raiders: Irish Banditry in Southern African.
Non-fiction
Reassessing Mandela
by William Beinart and Colin Bundy
Jacana
2020
Former Wits Vice-Chancellor and Principal (1997-2001) and Trustee of the Wits Foundation UK, Professor Colin Bundy (BA Hons 1967) provides a scholarly counterweight to the uncritical celebration of Nelson Mandela in Reassessing Mandela. Co-authored with William Beinart, it is a collection of essays that analyses aspects of Mandela’s life including his shortcomings. Since 2012 Prof Bundy has published four books in the Jacana Pocket Series: biographies of Govan Mbeki and Nelson Mandela, an assessment of post-apartheid South Africa, and a study of poverty in South Africa, past and present.
Contemporary Campus Life: Transformation, Manic Managerialism and Academentia
by Keyan Tomaselli
Best Red
2021
With incisive satirical humour, Emeritus Professor Keyan Tomaselli (BA 1973, BA Hons 1974, MA 1980, PhD 1984) delves into the quirks of market-driven education. He shows “how manic management negatively affects teaching, research, science, and reasoning – and must be brought into line to preserve the very nature of the academy.” He is distinguished professor at the University of Johannesburg. He is also emeritus professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal at the Centre for Communication, Media and Society. Read an edited version of his book launch.
Ex Offenders at the Scene of Crime
by David Goldblatt
Steidl
2021
David Goldblatt (BCom 1957, DLitt honoris causa 2008) explores crime through photographs and life stories of ex-offenders in the United Kingdom and South Africa. Published posthumously, in Ex Offenders at the Scene of Crime he asks “Are you monsters? Are you ‘ordinary’ people—if there are such? How did you come to do this? What are your lives?” Each portrait is accompanied by the subject’s written story in his or her own words, for many a cathartic experience and the first opportunity to recount events without being judged. To ensure the integrity of his undertaking, Goldblatt paid each of his subjects R800 rand for permission to photograph and interview them, and any profit from the project will be donated to the rehabilitation of offenders.
Gives US More Guns
by Mark Shaw
Jonathan Ball
2021
Director of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime and criminologist Dr Mark Shaw (BA 1991, BA Hons 1992, PhD 1997) calls it the “deadliest single crime” in post-apartheid South Africa. In his new book, Give Us More Guns he details the mechanisms at play and the chilling effects of Cape Town’s gang violence. He was previously the National Research Foundation Professor of Justice and Security at the University of Cape Town. He worked at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Uncaptured: The Story of the Nenegate/Trillion Whistleblower
by Mosilo Mothepu
Penguin Random House
2021
Former CEO of Trillian Financial Advisory, Mosilo Mothepu (BCom Hons 2002) details how she found herself at the heart of State Capture. She speaks candidly about the cost in respect of her safety, peace of mind and financial sacrifices. “I started having panic attacks. I had to see a psychologist and I was diagnosed with depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and insomnia,” said Mothepu, who had also started drinking excessively. Watch her interview with Carte Blanche.
For My Country: Why I Blew the Whistle on Zuma and the Guptas
by Themba Maseko
Jonathan Ball
2021
“When I joined the struggle as a 13-year-old boy in Soweto, I would never have imagined that one day I would blow the whistle on a special kind of corruption that was destroying the party and the values I had been fighting for all my life.” In 2010, government spokesperson Themba Maseko (BA 1988, LLB 1993) was called to the Gupta family’s Saxonwold compound and asked by Ajay Gupta to divert the government communication unit’s entire advertising budget to the family’s media company. When Maseko refused to do so, he was removed from his position and forced to leave the public service. This book details his journey. Maseko has had a close relationship with Wits and is on the management committee of South African Student Solidarity Foundation for Education, which is a fund started by a group of concerned former student leaders. He currently works as an independent communications consultant and part-time lecturer at the Wits School of Governance.
Beyond Tea and Tissues: Protecting and Promoting Mental Health at Work
by Karen Milner and Judith Ancer
KR Publishing
2021
This book aims to educate mental health and employee wellbeing professionals, managers, HR practitioners, and employers with practical tools needed to protect employees, prevent harm and promote mental health in the workplace. Professor Karen Milner (BA 1988, BA Hons 1990, MA 1995, PhD 2005) is an Associate Professor of Psychology in the School of Human and Community Development at the Wits. Judith Ancer (BA 1988, BA Hons 1989) is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has worked both in inpatient and outpatient adult psychotherapy settings, in both public service and private practice, as well as at Crossroads Remedial School with children and parents. She is a director of Shrink Rap, a company that offers continuing professional education to healthcare and human resource professionals and provides training and counselling services to small companies.
Memoir
Life’s Not Yoga, Or Is It? Finding Love in the Chaos of Life
by Jacqui Burnett
Sophie Blue Press
2021
This is a memoir written by life coach, adventurer and financial strategist Jacqui Burnett (MBA 2000). The memoir is her attempt to make sense of multiple traumatic life events. “I was about to step into a board meeting but instead I slid from my office chair and cowered under my desk sobbing. As a managing director, I was meant to announce a year of outstanding results; instead I was paralysed.” Her life seems to unravel with an avalanche of unexpected obstacles “before rising from the ashes to heal”.
Burnett shares inspirational thoughts, poetry and personal life stories. She has a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Industrial Psychology and Economics from the University of South Africa and a MBA from Wits, including a semester abroad at Rotterdam School of Management (RSM) Erasmus. She is a certified Integral Coach through New Ventures West, and trained as a yoga teacher with Yoga Tree, acquiring both these certifications in San Francisco in California.
It’s Not A Big Thing in Life
by Arnie Witkin
Angel Glow Press
2021
Arnold Witkin (CTA 1965) is a successful investment manager and a pioneer in the private equity industry in South Africa. He was a respected investor – first running the portfolio of the company that was to become MMI Holdings; then as the founder of a JSE-listed investment trust New Bernica and later as the country’s most prominent private equity manager via the Gensec NSA Fund. He emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1989, but still spends a lot of time in South Africa, and among his mentorship roles is helping ORT JET, a business networking organisation for small entrepreneurs, whose South African roots trace back to 1936. At the title suggests, this book is aimed at his grandchildren. The foreward is written by former West Indian test cricketer and commentator Michael Holding: “As we go through life, those of us lucky enough to shape our own lives have to make decisions along the way…You’ll find a lot of humour, as life is supposed to have its frivolity and fun. I can only hope folks will enjoy the pages, as I have, and we learn to appreciate a thing or two about life from this all-rounder who has experienced his fair share of thorns and roses.”
Fiction
A Coat of Many Colours
by Fred Khumalo
NB Publishers
2021
Award-winning author Fred Khumalo (MA 2015) released A Coat of Many Colours, which is a collection of his vibrant stories. The publisher’s note reads: “A boy plays detective, investigating the case of a goat and a coat; a woman takes revenge; an inhlabi bites off more than he can chew; teenage enmity rears its head in a prestigious school for girls; a man is cursed with an ever-growing sexual appetite; and more thoughtful stories with an entertaining zing!” Khumalo is an editor, speaker and author. In 2012 he was Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.
The School Gates
by Fiona Snyckers
Modjaji Books
2021
The School Gates is the third book in a loose trilogy of novels that includes Now Following You and SPIRE by Fiona Snyckers (BA 1969, B Ed 1975). In 2020 her novel Lacuna won a Best Fiction Novel Award at the Humanities and Social Sciences Awards. The novel’s main character, Ella Burchell is a burnt out professional dancer who moves to a small town in KwaZulu-Natal north coast to rebuild her life. It’s a fast-paced, witty novel that sheds light on “the world of private-school privilege”. Snyckers was a judge of the Twenty in 20 Short Story Competition. She was also a judge of the Bessie Head Short Story Award for 2015 and 2016.
Can’t Catch Camillo
by Felipe Kirsten
Self published
2020
Felipe Kirsten (BA FT 2020) describes himself as “a historical adventure author and recreational futurist” and has independently published Can’t Catch Camillo – a historical fiction novel that follows Camillo Ricchiardi, who fought for the Boers in the South African War. Camillo can’t help treating foreign wars like swashbuckling adventures. If Winston Churchill wasn’t in chains, the young reporter may have penned a scathing article about his captor’s reckless sojourn with the Boers: underdog farmer-warriors fighting for their independence on African soil. Camillo is an Italian military maverick and when tasked to assemble an elite legion of Italians skilled in bridge bombing and guerrilla tactics, Camillo puts his best hand forward. Camillo must quell mutinies, bounty hunts and romantic desires in his thrilling quest to discover his physical and mental limits—at his persistent and ever-nearing peril.