LEARNING FROM THE FIRST PEOPLE of the kalahari desert
Learning the old ways, beneath the Southern Cross, over decades.
WHY ME?
Because I promised not to forget the band of former hunter-gatherers I met under a baobab tree, more than 30 years ago.
Because I studied what it takes to survive systems designed to erase you.
Because I promised to help in their quest to make their children 'paper people'.
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The Koba saga, African literary
historical fiction
informed by Candi's research into an indigenous group of former hunter-gatherers, the Ju|’hoansi.
A SWEEPING STORY OF LOSS, LOVE AND BELONGING.
The only ethnographically informed fiction, focused on the Bushmen (San people) of the Kalahari Desert during the Apartheid years. Endorsed by the Ju|'hoan community in Namibia.
SHOP BOOKS
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Africa years & philanthropyBorn in Zambia, Candi grew up in South Africa during the Apartheid years. The injustices she was powerless to stop convinced her that writing stories was a way to hold history to account. In 2017 Candi co-founded the Nyae Nyae Village School Feeding scheme to facilitate school attendance for remote-dwelling Ju|’hoan children. This scheme is now incorporated in the Ju|’hoansi Development Fund who have built schools and trained mother-tongue teachers. Candi’s income from book sales goes towards getting food into the hostels. LEARN MORE |
life in the Kalahari
LATEST BOOKS
Koba Book 1
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An epic of survival, forbidden love, and being other in Apartheid South Africa. Koba is African historical fiction's latest indigenous hero. ‘Hide!’ shouts her father. Then he breaks cover to draw the hunting party away across the blackened plain. The child sees them shoot him. And murder her mother. It’s the 1950s but Koba is a hunter-gatherer from an ancient living culture. She’s a survivor. She fends for herself in a hostile land. Now she’s in the greatest danger she’s ever faced: she’s falling for a white boy in Apartheid South Africa, where love across racial divides is brutally punished. Book 1 of this fast-paced saga introduces a unique character into romance-writing, offering readers a fascinating glimpse into a forgotten way of life and into recent black history. |
Koba Book 2
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Historical fiction about belonging, survival, and the cost of love under a system designed to make both impossible. Koba and Mannie have been released from jail. Their crime, loving each other across the Apartheid colour bar in southern Africa. Koba escapes and using her bush skills, finds her way across the semi-desert to her former tribal home. But adapting to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle after a decade away, has challenges. And the man who murdered her parents is on her trail. Meanwhile Mannie absconds during his parole and sets off on a sub-continental road trip to try and find his beloved Koba. But will his new comrades persuade him to join them across the border for training in deadly guerrilla warfare? And what will that mean for his future with Koba? Under tragic circumstances the lovers meet, but the danger they are in means they must make fast, heart-breaking choices. Kalahari Passage is an action-packed story of a search for identity and love. Readers will be spellbound by Koba’s world where an ancient culture dances, trances and lives in harmony with the land. |