Tembeka Ngcukaitobi - Land Matters: South Africas Failed Land Reforms and the Road Ahead

Praise for Land Matters

This historically grounded book makes a significant contribution to ongoing debates and discussions about the many dimensions of the enduring and unresolved land crisis in South Africa.

Lungisile Ntsebeza, Emeritus Professor of African Studies and Sociology, University of Cape Town

Our Constitution, Ngcukaitobi writes, is potentially expansive, radical and revolutionary And yet, a quarter of a century later, we have yet to use this potential. In these pages is a guide to far-reaching and meaningful land redistribution governed by the rule of law.

Jonny Steinberg

Praise for The Land Is Ours

A highly impressive work of historical scholarship which speaks potently to the crisis-ridden South Africa of today.

Bill Nasson

An enthralling account of the first black lawyers and their battles to find a just, liberal order for all people in South Africa. I cannot remember any book in recent times that broadened my understanding of whiteblack relations so comprehensively and incisively.

Hermann Giliomee

In this important work released in the middle of a raging land debate Ngcukaitobi separates facts from myths. He also unpicks urban legends about ownership while debunking the concept of white meritocracy in SA. The structural pillars of the countrys economy were, after all, built on black suffering.

Xolisa Phillip, Business Day

This is an excruciating book of loss of crucial black talent, of how all-encompassing the colonial and apartheid systems were in destroying all manner of black lives. But it is also testimony to the resilience of the black spirit.

Mphuthumi Ntabeni, Spotlight Africa

A historical approach cannot fail to open up the discussion about land and lay bare the salient facts, especially when those who prefer to obfuscate the issue tend to imply that the debate is stale, that it has to do with the events of hundreds of years ago, as opposed to the realities and legacies that are experienced by people today.

For one thing, the personal histories Ngcukaitobi surfaces put a human face on matters that are often diminished by politics and dialectic debate. And the inclusion of the stories of the ordinary people who were the lawyers clients makes the rendition of historical land dispossession more than merely factual: it takes you there as a witness, to watch as it happened.

Perfect Hlongwane, Johannesburg Review of Books

Published by Penguin Books
an imprint of Penguin Random House South Africa (Pty) Ltd
Reg. No. 1953/000441/07
The Estuaries No. 4, Oxbow Crescent, Century Avenue, Century City, 7441
PO Box 1144, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa
www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za

First published 2021

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Publication Penguin Random House 2021
Text Tembeka Ngcukaitobi 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means,electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,without the prior written permission of the copyright owners.

ISBN 978 1 77609 596 4 (print)
ISBN 978 1 77609 597 1 (ePub)