If South Africa's non-fiction bestseller list is any indication of the zeitgeist, the country has entered an uneasy year. The country's bookshelves reflect a country struggling to make sense of a turbulent political environment, high crime statistics and an unreliable power grid.
an apocalyptic title How long can South Africa survive?: The looming crisis and now we are starting to descend have flew off the shelf.
Concerns that corruption would overwhelm state institutions drove readers to nonfiction analysis.legal documents, those of the public protector; State capture reportoutlines how the president's friends achieved success, making it one of the most shocking reads of the year. interfere in cabinet matters.
As political machinations take place behind closed doors in party executive meetings and are conveyed to the public in a double tone, readers will be taken by analysts to consider what the 355-page report means for the country's future. Are expected. Rogue: The inside story of SARS' elite crime-fighting unit.
South Africans rely on commentators as modern-day oracles who tell how close the country is to disaster. Another book, Blackout: Eskom crisisLet's take a look at why the country's electricity supply companies are suffering from rolling blackouts.
“We have so much political polarization in this country that there's always so much at play between different opinions, opposing views, and constituencies,” says Jeremy Bollein. Jonathan Ball Publisher. Writers who can understand current events are successful, he explains.
Bolan told Quartz that this mood is likely to prevail in 2017, when the ANC's elective conference is held. Predictions about which faction will win and who will succeed Jacob Zuma to rule South Africa would make for rich non-fiction.
Zuma and the controversy surrounding him is “the gift that keeps on giving”, Boleyn says. Works about Zuma himself are less likely to sell than books that understand Zuma's South Africa and the country he leaves behind.
A book predicting the post-Zuma scenario, when zuma goes and #ZuptasMustFall and other rants (A play on the president's name Zuma and his controversial allies gupta family) is going well.
South Africans are also lovers of biographies and life stories of athletes, politicians and even personalities. constitutional court judge Well done. This also applies to books that promise to reveal the hidden sides of politicians and news reporters.
Overall, non-fiction in South Africa far outweighs fiction, Borane explains. Still, the market is small, so selling more than 5,000 copies is considered a success. rogueThe book, about opaque political interference in the South African Revenue Service, has already sold more than 25,000 copies since September, Bolaine said.
On the other hand, novel writers can be lucky to sell a few hundred copies, especially if they are competing with the international novel market. When South African readers are not trying to understand the pressing realities of their country, they seem to be trying to escape from it.