South African women’s novels you should read

A few years ago I’d hoped to undertake a PhD where I wanted to read ALL the novels written by South African women in English published between 1994 and 2019. It all seemed very exciting. I was accepted for the PhD studies at a local and international university, and I began making a list of all of the books I hoped to read.

Enter a global pandemic, and my travel and PhD plans were scuppered by the travel restrictions and financial realities of COVID. I didn’t have time to make my full list, and I couldn’t get to the place I wanted to do the course.

Still, from the confines of my home, I began making the list of published books and then adding to it based on information from self-published authors who kindly shared information about their books with me. I successfully made a list of nine years’ worth of novels.

Not too bad, but much more to do!

Why do I think this is still valuable? Because women’s stories and these books matter. They matter to the way we understand our country, our world, and ourselves. They matter because they are wide-ranging, impossible to contain under a single genre or subject matter, and, finally, because they are often fantastic books.

Now, four years later, I have a bit of time to get back to adding to the list and rejuvenating this process. Find the books I’ve listed so far, here.

I’d love to hear from you about your favourite book written by a woman in the past few years. Please do share!