The Interpreters 2025

Across three decades of democracy, South Africa has seen an outpouring of
longform, narrative journalism and creative nonfiction - genres in which some of the
country's finest writers have tried to make sense of a complex and changing society.
This brand new, one-of-a-kind anthology collects some of the best nonfiction
published since the end of apartheid, carefully selected and introduced by editors
Sean Christie and Hedley Twidle.

From the underworld of zama-zama goldminers to the tragicomic closure of a Cape
Town Zoo, from stick fighting to punk rock, game lodges to fruit farms, cricket pitches
to mermaids, The Interpreters: South Africa's New Nonfiction assembles a range of true
stories that are often more far-fetched, and more compelling, than any fiction.
Creative nonfiction in South Africa has often been found at the margins of our media
- in zines, journals, now defunct magazines and personal blogs. It is a kind of writing
that has, in general, not made much financial sense - more a medium for those
obsessed with pursuing a single story over months or years. In The Interpreters, the
editors have combed through 30 years of post-apartheid writing to produce a
collection that combines preeminent names with lesser known but no less immersive
and powerful works of nonfiction - voices that deserve to be read and that represent
fresh interpretations of a nation's history.

Featuring Kimon de Greeff William Dicey Alexandra Dodd Madeleine Fullard
Mark Gevisser Anna Hartford Anton Harber Michiel Heyns Anton
Kannemeyer Bongani Kona Rustum Kozain Antjie Krog Alastair Laird
Adrian Leftwich Lidudumalingani Bongani Madondo Rian Malan Zanele Mji
Mogorosi Motshumi Nosisi Mpolweni Julie Nxadi Njabulo Ndebele
Lindokuhle Nkosi Sean O'Toole Kopano Ratele Warren Raysdorf Srila Roy
Lin Sampson Kwanele Sosibo Jonny Steinberg Niren Tolsi Matthew Wilhelm-
Solomon Roger Young Percy Zvomuya

ABOUT THE EDITORS
SEAN CHRISTIE is a journalist and sometime coordinator of
emergency responses, who has contributed longform
pieces to several South African newspapers, journals and
essay collections. His non-fiction book, Under Nelson
Mandela Boulevard - Life Among the Stowaways (Jonathan
Ball Publishers, 2016), was awarded the 2017 Recht Malan
Prize. He is a previous winner of the CNN Multichoice African
Journalist Award.

HEDLEY TWIDLE is a writer, teacher and researcher based
at the University of Cape Town, where he is currently head
of English Literary Studies. His collection of essays and non-
fiction, Firepool: Experiences in an Abnormal World, was
published by Kwela Books in 2017. Experiments with Truth,
a study of life writing and the South African transition,
appeared in the African Articulation series from James
Currey in 2019. A new essay collection, Show Me the
Place, was published by Jonathan Ball Publishers in 2024.

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