Mzuvukile Maqetuka’s Dulcie and Seratjie: A Story from an African Farm is supposed to be “stories from the dorpies of South Africa and in particular (in Maqetuka’s case) stories from the Camdeboo.” Perhaps it is. Looked at differently, this is a piece of work that shows how one specific setting could be a microcosm of a grander place characterised by (un) subtle shades of denotations and aura. It is these (un)subtle particularities that prevail to help the reader realise that we are all facing the same pleasures and hardships.
In Dulcie and Seratjie: A Story from an African Farm, Maqetuka succeeds in fashioning a sense of ease, a piecing together, between the reader and the text. The easy-going form of storytelling that is Dulcie and Seratjie: A Story from an African Farm allows the reader to become comfortable with the text. In remarkable ways, Maqetuka pleasantly burdens the reader’s imagination through his pen to imagine the quaint and the scenic, to imagine varieties of highlands and peaks that magnify to form an exciting setting.
Reading the stories, I found myself joined to the happenings and thus a lot more fascinated by the impending outcome – whether present or absent in the text. I found Dulcie and Seratjie: A Story from an African Farm to be a splendid piece of creative work astutely hewed to inspire entertainment that at once empowers in momentous ways. This is a delightful assemblage of appetising fragments aimed to stir the reader’s craving.
Page on, then, and travel to meet strangers that are the same as yourself in Maqetuka’s vital Dulcie and Seratjie: A Story from an African Farm.
Maruping Phepheng: Author of the novel, HANKAROO

Repeatedly in the recent past, we have heard of a ‘Jim Comes to Jo’Burg’ mythology in the South African context. The author has deconstructed this myth, reversing it into a ‘Jim is Tired of Jo’Burg’ scenario, telling the story through his protagonist, Jim (Kgabalatsana Monare) aka “TM”, who has come to Johannesburg from his rural village of Dinokana in the Western Transvaal in search of ‘gold’. But, as time goes by, he gets sucked into and ultimately gets frustrated by the challenges of city life, to which a rural boy is unaccustomed. He tries to make a living as a miner and makes friends with the Indian tailors in downtown Johannesburg.
He leaves his place of employment on the mine to live in the township of Alexandra – a mass urban slum of the city of ‘gold’ where he commingles with life in a township. He meets his ‘to-be-lifetime lover’ Nancy Mabheka, who falls deeply in love with him – unfortunately for her, for when Kgabalatsana realises that he will not find the ‘gold’ that he came to the city of Johannesburg for, he decides to go back home to his village, leaving her behind. Nancy then follows him to a life that is enigmatic to her.
Reminiscent of Peter Abrahams’ Mine Boy, Jim is Tired of Jo’Burg exposes the reader to the challenges of urban and rural life in the South Africa of the time. Through pathos, joviality, the author takes us down the memory lane of life in the townships of South Africa in the 60s and 70s, and the choice that its people had to take – to be an urbanite or ruralite.

A Powerful novel of compassion, humanity and courage during the Nazi occupation of Greece in World War II. A group of contemplative Orthodox sisters in a remote monastery on a mountaintop in Thessaly look after a downed British fighter pilot and a group of refugee Jewish children.
A dashing young British pilot is shot down by one of the Luftwaffe’s formidable Messerschmitt Bf109s while in combat over Greece during World War II. He finds himself in the grounds of a monastery, high up on the Meteora in Thessaly.
The strict Orthodox Sisters, whose lives were centred on prayer and meditation, find themselves in a quandary, having this wounded airman among them.
Life in the monastery is further disrupted by the arrival of twelve Jewish children, requiring refuge from the relentless pursuit of Hitler’s Wehrmacht soldiers.
The story unfolds with their ingenious methods of survival as they desperately try to protect all they hold dear.
Loyalty, love and devotion are severely challenged against the backdrop of the horrors and tragedies of war-torn Greece.

Liberation struggles are born first out of necessity
Any populace facing the unjustness of a colonial government, or the strictures of a dictatorial state, will eventually rise up to overthrow these heinous regimes.
But a liberation movement’s most challenging times often follow once the fighting is over and governing begins.
“You might think that deposing the Adema regime is a difficult task. But wait until Azamata is free and you are in government, then you will realize that fighting for freedom is far less difficult than maintaining it,” says Lexington Mawewe, the founding father of the Azamata Revolutionary People’s Party (ARPP) in Maqetuka’s new revolutionary saga, Once we were comrades. Both a valuable and highly readable addition to the struggle lexicon, this novel underlines how the high-minded and righteous ideals of liberation movements can founder on the shores of broken promises; if the people’s expectations of improved living conditions are not met.
And this pitfall, plus a disconnect between the values and policies of the ARPP’s old guard and an ambitious new leader — who eventually takes the party to government in Azamata — form some of the book’s main themes.
Yet, there is also much intrigue in-between. From freedom fighter Tornado Mdumbe’s heroic antics to the tragedy that befalls young Thole Msibi, the drama does not let up.

The heart-wrenching journey of a young woman, Sarah-Anne’s quest to find the last will and testament of her Grandfather Luke, who died under suspicious circumstances.
The devious plan and lies of the accountant John Stephen Boucher and his mother, the housekeeper, Violet, to keep Sarah-Anne away from her inheritance.
The content of a letter from Attorney Raymond Chad Tucker (Spike) forced Sarah-Anne to return to the farm she so loved yet feared! Seeking answers to the life she left behind; and finding murder, deceit, intrigue, and suspicion spanning over three generations.
If you like unravelling plots and enjoy a riveting, heart-racing, chilling thriller – read on.