A private-eye convention and a tussle over a Pierneef A young man's unsettling experience in the American South and a tragedy off the coast of Mauritius. A bizarre night of industrial theatre and a translator at a loss for words.

These are but a few of the fictions in 101 Detectives, a new collection of short stories by Ivan Vladislavić, one of South Africa's most celebrated authors.

A collection of short stories launched his career as a writer. Twenty-six years and a whole oeuvre later, 101 Detectives showcases Vladislavić's virtuosity as he bends and recasts this literary form in spectacular fashion.

3 DAYS TO LIVE
A CIA-agent bride is on her European honeymoon when she and her husband are poisoned - leaving her seventy-two hours to take revenge.

WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST
When a deal goes bad on a tech executive in Washington, DC, he turns an order to kill his family into a chance to relive his military glory days.

THE HOUSEKEEPERS
A Los Angeles doctor trusts her two housekeepers, but when she's murdered in a botched attempt to steal drugs, the pair of grifters vie to control their former employer's estate - facing off against the Russian mob.

In A Coat of Many Colours, award-winning author Fred Khumalo presents a patchwork of various vibrant stories befitting the collections title.
A boy plays detective, investigating the case of a goat and a coat; a woman takes revenge; an inhlabi bites off more than he can chew; teenage enmity rears its head at a prestigious school for girls; a man is cursed with an ever-growing sexual appetite; and more thoughtful stories with an entertaining zing.

From the bestselling, award-winning author of The Winter Soldier and The Piano Tuner comes a collection of interlacing tales of men and women as they face the mysteries and magic of the world. On a fated flight, a balloonist makes a discovery that changes her life forever. A telegraph operator finds an unexpected companion in the middle of the Amazon. A doctor is beset by seizures, in which he is possessed by a second, perhaps better, version of himself. And in Regency London, a bare-knuckle fighter prepares to face his most fearsome opponent, while a young mother seeks a miraculous cure for her ailing son. At times funny and irreverent, always moving, these stories cap a fifteen-year project that has won both a National Magazine Award and Pushcart Prize. From the Nile's depths to the highest reaches of the atmosphere, from volcano-wracked islands to an asylum on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, these are lives of ecstasy and epiphany.

Niq Mhlongo returns with a collection of short stories that cover the span of our democracy: crime, xenophobia, racism and homophobia, the new black elite, land redistribution, the Zuma presidency. The stories have been published to critical acclaim in France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the USA but remain largely unknown in South Africa. A​ffluenza offers us a chance to savour Niq Mhlongo's take on the madness of the last twenty years.

Niq Mhlongo was born in 1973 in Soweto. He has a BA from the University of the Witwatersrand, with majors in African Literature and Political Studies. His first novel, Dog Eat Dog, was published by Kwela in 2004 and was translated into Spanish under the title Perro Come Perro in 2006. This Spanish edition was awarded the Mar de Letras prize.

Besides writing novels and short stories, Niq has written a screenplay for the animated children's TV series Magic Cellar and scripts for a comic magazine called Mshana, the first issue of which appeared in February 2007. After Tears is his second novel.

From Jeffrey Archer, the bestselling author of the Clifton Chronicles and Kane and Abel, comes his captivating sixth collection of short stories, And Hereby Hangs a Tale, full of magnificent characters and shocking plot twists. In 'High Heels' discover what happens in a loss adjuster's memorable first case where his wife has to explain why a pair of designer shoes couldn't have gone up in flames. While on the streets of Delhi in 'Caste-Off' a man and woman fall in love while waiting for a traffic light to turn green. And in 'A Good Eye' a priceless Renaissance oil painting remains in the same family for generations until its current owner is faced with a difficult choice. Jeffrey demonstrates his natural aptitude for short stories which are stylish, witty and entertaining. His mastery of characterization and suspense, combined with a gift for the unexpected, jaw-dropping plot twist, show him at the height of his powers and demonstrate why he is one of world's bestselling authors.

Discover Angela Carter's classic feminist retelling of favourite fairy tales interwoven by a master of seductive, luminous storytelling. From familiar fairy tales and legends - Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Puss in Boots, Beauty and the Beast, vampires and werewolves - Angela Carter has created an absorbing collection of dark, sensual, fantastic stories.

Two sought-after collections of short stories by Ivan Vladislavic are brought together and made available again in this new volume.

Vladislavic's mastery of understatement and brevity is brilliantly demonstrated in these stories from Missing Persons (1989), for which he received the Olive Schreiner Prize, and Propaganda by Monuments and Other Stories (1996), featuring the two stories that won him the Thomas Pringle Award.

From the master of the long story form, the Sunday Times No. 1 besteller, Full Dark, No Stars - described by the Sunday Telegraph as 'an extraordinary collection, thrillingly merciless, and a career high point' - now with a stunning new cover look. Is it possible to fully know anyone? Even those we love the most? What tips someone over the edge to commit a crime?
*In '1922', a story which was adapted into a Netflix original film, a Nebraska farmer, the turning point comes when his wife threatens to sell off the family homestead.
*In 'Big Driver', a cozy mystery writer plots a savage revenge after a brutal encounter with a stranger.
*In 'Fair Extension', Dave Streeter gets the chance to cure himself from illness - if he agrees to impose misery on an old rival.
*In 'A Good Marriage', Darcy Anderson discovers a box containing her husband's dark and terrifying secrets - he's not the man who keeps his nails short and collects coins. And now he's heading home . . .
*And readers have a treat in store, with a bonus story, 'Under the Weather'.

This is the classic collection of Chinua Achebe's short fiction, written over twenty years and drawn from literary journals and magazines. The earliest, 'Marriage is a Private Affair' (1952), dates back to his student days at Ibadan, Nigeria, while the latest, 'Sugar Baby' (1972), uses a man's simple obsession with sugar as an allegory of the far greater evil of human behaviour during the time of war.

'Did Mandela work for nothing?'
'Mr Sushi comes to town'
'Give me a corrupt black any day'
These are just some of Eric Miyeni's newspaper columns and opinion pieces, which have earned him friends and enemies alike. Known for his straight-talking frankness, his views on subjects ranging from politics and travel to big business and sport elicit strong responses.

Here Comes The Snake In The Grass is a selection of Eric Miyeni's columns and occasional writings covering a variety of topics, from Julius Malema, Oprah Winfrey and Brenda Fassie to the value of radio, the true cost of crime, the need for excellence in South Africa and the difficulty of finding love in the modern world. Some of the writings in this collection court controversy, addressing issues many want hidden from view; others provide glimpses of the writer's softer side. All show why Eric Miyeni's is an unmistakeable voice in the South African media.

Alternately hard-hitting and personal, rousing and funny, Here Comes The Snake In The Grass is an entertaining and informative look at the South African cultural landscape.

Joburg Noir is a collection of writings about memories, legends, loss, jokes, stories, myths and experiences by twenty-two gifted and versatile authors in South Africa. It makes the reader experience present-day Johannesburg as if one were in the past. The stories seek to understand, reconstruct, reinvent and recover this city space of loss, joy, deprivation, resistance and possibility by revealing its complex dynamics. They are funny, shocking, violent, absurd, strangely tender and memorable.
Their lasting resonance lies in the fact that they invoke the joys and traumas of the past and present, making the two to co-exist and interlock. After reading this uncompromising and gritty anthology, the reader is bound to feel like a time-traveller who has voyaged into a magical alternate city and a reality that was either misnamed or not named at all. The intention is to help the readers to delve into their own memories in search of pictures of their sweet childhood and fractured identities.

Contributors: Sam Mathe; Fred Khumalo; Lidudumalingani; Keletso Mopai; Sibongile Fisher; Kgomotso Masemola; Styles Lucas Ledwaba; Mapule Mohulatsi; Khanyi Magubane; Sifiso Mzobe; Gloria Bosman; Nedine Moonsamy; Yewande Omotso; Mabel Mnesa; Nthikeng Mohlele; Eusebius McKaiser; Siphiwo Mahala; Nkateko Masinga; Mzuvukile Maqetuka; Sydney Mojoko; Michelle van Heerden.

From South Africa to Iceland, rural Belgium and the Alps, the stories in Mad Honey radiate out to encompass the globe. In Cape Town, a couple raise their son in leafy suburbia, while their cleaner's child must face the inequities of their country head on.

Amid Reykjavik's frozen landscape, a woman takes mad honey with the man who has left her for another, and spends a chilling night with a violent Russian and his companion.

And in New England two lovers face the cruelty of a host who lacks all humanity, while a mother takes pity on a street child she finds on a platform at Park Station.

Crowning this collection is a story cycle featuring a young Namibian and his Japanese friend, who spend a claustrophobic night in a chateau with a dark pool of glowing eels - this after being pulled into a tragedy on the ski slopes of Italy.

Following on from his multi award-winning first collection, published in English as The Alphabet of Birds, SJ Naudé's second collection of short stories disturbs, surprises and enthrals.

In this collection of short stories, Peter F. Hamilton draws you into an array of captivating tales. These exciting glimpses into his worlds are not to be missed - and as Ken Follett says, 'each short story has enough ideas for a whole novel'. Manhattan in Reverse features the author's popular detective Paula Myo, from his bestselling Commonwealth books. Other stories include Watching Trees Grow, a murder mystery set in an alternative 1800s Oxford and The Forever Kitten. This questions eternal youth and the sacrifices required to pursue it. With all his usual brilliantly conceived storytelling, Peter F. Hamilton's talents are on full display.

Marico Moon is a collection of 60 stories by the well-known, much-loved Herman Charles Bosman. Almost all of the Oom Schalk Lourens classics are included; also some less well known, but equally brilliant and amusing stories.

The 'problem' with many Bosman stories is that, as previously published, they use language that is today considered by many to be unacceptably offensive. For this reason, Bosman has been in serious danger of being sidelined by all except diehard fans.

In a quest to overcome this difficulty, the publisher experimented with minor editorial adjustments and omissions, and concluded that Bosman can be presented in ways that faithfully present his storytelling brilliance without giving any offence. The result is Marico Moon: 60 stories with minimal editing, retaining the integrity of the original text.

These Bosman stories represent a superbly eclectic collection, with no consciously unifying factor other than that they inspire readers to smile, laugh, think, wonder or wander. The stories in Marico Moon are 60 excellent reasons why Lionel Abrahams referred to Bosman as 'a South African literary genius'.