My Bestseller
"They're Burning the Churches"
Patrick Noonan's book tells the truth about the insurrection that changed the face of South Africa… … and about the violence, torture, assassinations, intrigue, passion and betrayal that has never before been told outside the Black townships of South Africa. Yes, this is a story that has never been told.
This book is the true account of the traumatised memory of the people from at least five townships in the Vaal. They made it happen; they suffered the consequences; they are remembered.
They’re Burning the Churches is a meticulously written, moving account of the groundbreaking events that dramatically accelerated the downfall of apartheid. Noonan’s clear and unbiased historical record clarifies many misconceptions regarding important events such as the Sharpeville Six Trial, the Delmas Treason Trial, the 1984 uprising that led to international sanctions, the first-ever army invasions of the Vaal townships, and the still controversial Boiphatong massacre that stopped the Codesa negotiations.
From historians and the World Council of Churches to local and diaspora non-black South Africans who still don’t know what happened, this is a book for which people around the world having been waiting a long time.
price: ZAR 375.38
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The untold, true story of an African slave who became a Christian wonder worker
What do Shakespeare, Henry VIII, Black Lives Matter (BLM), the Paris-Dakar Rally, an ‘Islamic’ raid on an obscure Irish fishing village, and the less known St Benedict the Black have in common?
Answer: slavery. The forced migra0ons that threw up American and African saints whose families toiled silently to build European and American economies, while our ancestors looked the other way.
As well as digging out the true story of Benedict Manasseri this easy-toread book walks us past real episodes of human trafficking, the Church’s role in Irish, American Arab and African slavery, con0nuing racism, social holiness, genocide in King Leopold’s Congo, and the UN interest in the main character, the saintly eccentric, Brother Benedict himself.
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Township God
Township God This book is not Patrick Noonan’s autobiography. It is a travelogue, Michael Palin style, and a diary, John Pilger style. It chronicles major flash points, and the spirituality – his experiences of the sacred - of a journey of 40 years living in the townships of the Vaal Triangle - where “the liberation revolution began in earnest” (Former Mandela legal adviser Advocate George Bizos) Here Noonan, from the perspective of Ground Zero, shares his life with extraordinary township people, saints and sinners, and tells many untold stories, national secrets and frightening, life-changing events. He describes vividly a strange confrontation with the paranormal, being traumatised during the baptism of 29 infants, and the bizarre deportation of a priest. You will witness, awestruck, his angry conversations, even outbursts, with God in a darkened Sharpeville church. And just hours later you will be celebrating Township God in Jerusalem and meeting Christ in a first century RDP house in the informal settlement of Capharnaum on the Sea of Galilee. The original “Roots” of Christianity. An immigrant priest, Patrick Noonan even dares to reveal for the first time some nasty dealings between South Africa, the British and the Irish in the roaring eighties. Township God will take you to places and spaces very few people ever get to visit!
price: ZAR 282.78
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St Francis Uncensored
Why is it that for 800 years a vast amount of research and writing has surrounded St Francis yet the ordinary people of the Western world still see him simply as a saint who loved animals? Why did their families think that Francis and Clare were runaway lovers, caught up in a strange medieval cult of which, some thought, Francis was the leader? Was St Clare, who spoke truth to power, an early leader in world feminism? Why do some elements of Islam, a faith from which Francis learned so much, even today claim St Francis as their "saint" and Time magazine speaks of this as a crucial link between East and West? In this no-holds barred, eye-opening account the author peels away layers of tired thinking and discovers a bright new world with many alternative questions to ask. He invites the reader (and biographers straining to explain Pope Francis) to join him in exploring avenues that shaped the tantalizing, even unorthodox, spirituality of St Francis and Clare of Assisi.
price: ZAR127.37
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Help! My Granny's Dog is a Racist!: Is Reconciliation and Social Cohesion Finally Dead?
Most of us in South Africa, during the 45 years of apartheid, didn’t notice that we had been programmed, rebooted, reset and downloaded as new creatures: apartheid man – or woman.We were the first country in human history to successfully try this experiment in social engineering. Happily, eventually, we saw the light and repudiated it. Or did we! Many of us are still recovering from the damage apartheid did to us. It must be said that from media reports, and noted in this book, a small but growing number of white South Africans are committing themselves to making South Africa a home for all. In spite of that, today racist outbursts are smothering the airwaves.