BrightLights@BookBuddy

J ohan Beyers, family man, grandfather and a children's toy-maker who permanently resides in eastern Namibia, hardly fits the mould of the typical fantasy fiction author. This is after all, the genre of J. R. R. Tolkien, Roald Dahl, Terry Pratchett, Stephen King and most recently, J. K. Rowling, to name but a few. Born in South Africa in 1953, Beyers qualified as a meteorological technician at Pretoria Technicon, and moved with his wife to Namibia in 1977 where they have quietly lived ever since, until a few years ago. H is debut novel, The Kupferberg Mining Company , published by Wordweaver Publishing House in 2013, is something out of the ordinary, and read in countries as far away from Namibia as Finland. The German noun adjunct 'kupferberg' literally translates into 'copper mountain'. The novel is classified by us as fantasy fiction, a genre which allows for the existence of imaginary worlds where surreal, supernatural, paranormal and magic events, even magic...

 Image: Lauri Kubuitsile for Books Live, Sunday Times “I love our inconsistencies and our internal conflicts,” says Lauri Kubuitsile. “The convoluted ways we bend our thoughts to rationalise our actions, to justify what we do, even the most horrible acts. We’re not always good; if we were I would have long left human stories and started writing about warthogs or baobab trees. Some of the scenes made me sad. Sometimes reading them, even now, I cry. But that’s okay, I’m human too; we are a magnificently resilient sort of animal.”  In an interview with Jacqui L'Ange for the Sunday Times

Synopsis South-West Africa, 1904: When German colonial authorities issue an extermination order, the Herero are forced to flee into the Kalahari desert and seek safety in British Bechuanaland (modern day Botswana). Tjipuka, a young Herero mother, escapes the genocide with her infant, but is captured and put to work in the death camps in Luderitz. There, she has to find the courage, and the will, to survive against all odds. The Transvaal, 1899: Riette's nursing ambitions are crushed w hen she is forced into marriage with an older neighbour. When he is taken captive by the British colonial regime and their farm set ablaze during the Second Anglo-Boer War, she and his daughters endure the horrors of the British concentration camps. Against the backdrop of southern Africa's colonial wars at the dawn of the twentieth century, THE SCATTERING traces the fates of two remarkable women whose paths cross after each has suffered the devastation and dislocation of war. ...

Iron Hand by Andre Izaaks  (Mariental, Namibia) Disgruntled, dismayed in hopeless despair Surefooted the mob makes its way. Disowned by the masters who now run the town The struggle kids have something to say. Destination; a bacon-strip of red, black and blue The party some say you can trust The demonstrators beg to differ somehow 'Said they've been treated unjust. Suddenly they're there; Batons, clubs, the boys in blue There to keep the order An old instruction, nothing new.  The kids though are restless Fed-up with the status quo The Force draws live ammo Suddenly all gung-ho.  Pandemonium ensues Both sides at full blast Going at each other Onlookers stand aghast.  Amidst the chaos and mayhem A casualty, someone said, Behold, when the dust had settled One of the struggling lay dead.  A commission of inquiry Walters is tasked to probe The police shrugged shoulders Been playing rope-a-dope.  The verdict is s...