A definitive history of one of the most significant religious orders to emerge in the Anglican church, the Cowley Fathers - the first men’s religious order to be founded in the Church of England since the Reformation.

Assisting readers in experiencing this geological phenomena, the authors draw upon actual encounters with volcanoes, often through firsthand accounts of those who have witnessed eruptions and miraculously survived the terrifying aftermath. 46 line illustrations. 85 halftones.

Xhosa oral poetry has defied the threats to its integrity over two centuries, to take its place in a free South Africa. This volume establishes the background to this poetic re-emergence, preserving and transmitting the voice of the Xhosa poet.

This book is an account of the history of the abaThembu, from the reign of uKumkani Nxeko in c.1650 to the death of uKumkani Dalindyebo in 1920. The importance of this cut‑off date lies in the fact that uKumkani Dalindyebo’s reign was characterised by relative stability compared to those of his predecessors. His prestige, however, was demeaned by the Department of Native Affairs’ Secretary whose instruction was that uKumkani Dalindyebo should not be addressed as a ‘paramount chief’ as that title applied exclusively to the government, thereby strengthening the government’s position and elevating it to be above customary law. AbaThembuland was – and still is – central to the history of the former Transkei region and South Africa. Not only does it form part of the former Transkei region, but it also constitutes South Africa, and so divisions, conflicts, developments and/or underdevelopments in abaThembuland inevitably affected not only the former Transkei region but also the greater part of South Africa in no small measure. Thus, the history of abaThembuland and the divisions thereof overlap with the history of the former Transkei region and South Africa.

Spanning three generations and narrated in the voices of both the living and the dead, A Chain of Voices is reminiscent of William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!; it is a beautiful and haunting illustration of racism's plague on South Africa. On a farm near the Cape Colony in the early nineteenth century, a slave rebellion kills three and leaves eleven others condemned to death. The rebellion's leader, Galant, was raised alongside the boys who would become his masters. His first victim, Nicholas van der Merwe, might have been his brother. As the many layers of Andre Brink's novel unfold, it becomes clear that the violent uprising is as much a culmination of family tensions as it is an outcry against the oppression of slavery.

Place is a moving love letter to South Africa, merging literature and land­scape, and taking the reader on a breath-taking journey – into the heart of South Africa’s spectacular landscape and the inner-worlds of its most cel­ebrated authors.