Christopher Hope

Beginning in 1949, with Afrikaner hopes dashed by the outcome of the war, Hope reveals the character and concerns of the people of South Africa and how the 20th century almost passes them by.

Me, the Moon and Elvis Presley

Hope

Christopher

Winner of the 1985 Whitbread Prize for Fiction: Kruger's Alp moves from pulpit to black township, from Johannesburg's fortress prison to the underworld of Soho as we follow renegade priest Theodore Blanchaille in his search for the legendary gold spirited away by President Kruger in order to found an earthly paradise. 'An extremely attractive book, witty and fast-moving and densely imagined' Sunday Times Theodore Blanchaille is searching for the missing millions of the Boer leader Paul Kruger, and his lost city of gold. As a child he had heard tales of Kruger from a wayward priest; what follows is an astonishing journey that takes Blanchaille through a landscape peopled with spies, visionaries, terrorists, traitors, patriots and exiled presidents. From huge transit camps on the veld to a notorious prison block, from a township in the bloody aftermath of 'pacification' to a secret travellers' rest for fleeing pilgrims, and from the streets and cellars of Soho to paradise at last on a Swiss mountainside, Kruger's Alp is a fantastical political satire of extraordinary invention.

Kruger's Alp

My Chocolate Redeemer

Jimfish

In this book the author provides a funny and thought-provoking personal response to Moscow. He found the city similar to South Africa - a world on edge, with tensions and an appetite for the grotesque common to all repressive societies. Christopher Hope also wrote the novel, White Boy Running.

Moscow! Moscow!

'A brilliant, compelling novel about innocence and betrayal.' Kate Saunders, The Times

Shooting Angels

In the Country of the Black Pig, and Other Poems

Why does Namibia’s economy look the way it does today? Was the reliance on raw materials for exports and on the service sector for employment an inevitability? And for what reasons has the manufacturing sector – the vehicle for economic development for many now-high income countries throughout the 19th and 20th centuries – seen its growth held back? With these questions in mind, this book offers an extensive analysis of industrial development and economic change in Namibia since 1900, exploring their causes, trajectory, vicissitudes, context, and politics. Its focus is particularly on the motivations behind the economic decisions of the state, arguing that power relations – both internationally and domestically – have held firm a status quo that has resisted efforts towards profound economic change. This work is the first in-depth economic study covering both the colonial and independence eras of Namibia’s history and provides the first history of the country’s manufacturing sector.

Developmentalism, Dependency, and the State: Industrial Development and Economic Change in Namibia since 1900

A. S. Byatt

A dragon and a little girl, both outcasts, become friends and help bring people and dragons together at a time when both need each other.

The Dragon Wore Pink

The Hottentot Room

Christopher Hope grew up in a South Africa defined by violence and racism, and he would later become one of the most trenchant critics of the apartheid government. Thirty years after he left to live in self-imposed exile in London, Hope returns for a road trip, longing to discover what became of the country of his birth. Instead of the promise of Nelson Mandela's vision, however, he finds a nation not of equality and democracy, but one in the iron grip of a corrupted ruling party; a place where racial divides and tensions are deeper than ever. As the old imperial idols of Cecil Rhodes and Paul Kruger are literally pulled from their pedestals in a collective yearning to destroy the past, and as any hope for the future is seemingly extinguished by political incompetence and malfeasance, Hope ponders the question : what next?"

In Search of the New South Africa

The Café de Move-on Blues

David Mungo Booi is a descendant of the Bushmen who once lived in the distant African Karoo. Chosen by a conclave of elders, travelling on funds raised by public subscription, sponsored by the Society for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of England, Booi embarks on a mission never before attempted by a civilized man: to explore England as a site suitable for settlement and to assess if the natives are friendly and capable... He sets out to answer ancient questions about this strange island race: why do they believe there will always be an England? Did they build Jerusalem in their green and pleasant land? David Booi's epic journey takes him from prison to Parliament, from asylum to Palace. Battling each step of the way against treachery, cruelty, superstition and disease, his English notebooks tell of an exploration as heroic as any African safari and a good deal darker.

Darkest England

When Kathleen dies, her only son returns to Johannesburg to carry out her final wishes. Her legacy, which he must deliver in person, includes a cache of firearms for a former apartheid enforcer; a wig that once belonged to a Liberian boy soldier; and her knitting needles, which he must present to Bamadodi, the Rain Queen.

A Novel

My Mother's Lovers

Englishmen

Theodore Blanchaille is searching for the missing millions of the Boer leader Paul Kruger, and his lost city of gold. As a child he had heard tales of Kruger from a wayward priest; what follows is an astonishing journey that takes Blanchaille through a landscape peopled with spies, visionaries, terrorists, traitors, patriots and exiled presidents. From huge transit camps on the veld to a notorious prison block, from a township in the bloody aftermath of 'pacification' to a secret travellers' rest for fleeing pilgrims, and from the streets and cellars of Soho to paradise at last on a Swiss mountainside, Kruger's Alp is a fantastical political satire of extraordinary invention.

It is the early fifties in Badminton, Johannesburg, where all the street-names recall British kings and queens and where retired soldiers relive the desert war in their dusty gardens. This small-town dreamscape erupts with the arrival of Nathan J. Swirsky, a pink volcano with an extravagant moustache; a magical pharmacist who speaks of exotic travels to faraway, forbidden places. In alarm and delight, the children of Badminton observe his unlikely resurrection...

The Love Songs of Nathan J. Swirsky

'''The Garden of Bad Dreams'''' is a seductive collection of short stories from Christopher Hope: a conjurer of strange places and displaced people.From the story of the entertainer who is compelled to collect small people, to the monk who pushes away a m

Christopher Hope

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