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VOLUME 40 THE MAGAZINE ABOUT BOOKS FOR BOOK LOVERS THE PENGUIN POST MOTHER CITY LOVE All about Cape Town’s rich history, vibrant culture, and stunning landscapes YOUR GUT GUIDE Ways to nourish your second brain and feel your best every day BOOK CLUB A time-travelling romance revisiting love, nostalgia, and second chances ON MY MIND Phuthuma Nhleko on the issues around Africa’s population surge YOUR FREE COPY! WIN R1 500 in books! KENNETH TEBOGO MIDDLETON And his delicious rebellion against food rulesYour mind’s in overdrive. Time to unwind. Unwind your mindDear reader A new year always brings a shift in pace – a chance to reset, to rethink what inspires us, and to step into the months ahead with a little more intention. It feels fi tting, then, to open this issue with a celebration of creativity in all its forms, beginning in the kitchen. Kenneth Tebogo Middleton sets the tone with Paradise, his beautiful debut cookbook shaped by indulgence, memory and fearless fl avour. From early Facebook experiments to the inviting dishes on every page, Kenneth’s journey is one of fi nding his voice – and trusting it. “Food is one of life’s greatest pleasures – why deny that?” he reminds us, off ering comfort with confi dence, and creativity without apology. We chat to literary chameleon Imraan Coovadia, whose new novel An Enemy of the People navigates student protests, tax evasion, and the everyday anxieties of raising children in Cape Town. In fi ction, Jennie Godfrey refl ects on the 1980s suburbia that shaped Th e Barbecue at No. 9, we explore wonder in Th e Elsewhere Express, revisit love with Emlyn Rees and Josie Lloyd. Th en, we sit down with Martin Steyn, journey through the Mother City, and turn inward with insights on awakening, cortisol, and gut health. A fresh year, and plenty to savour. Happy new year – and happy reading! contents 02 BOOKSCAPE The 2025 Booker Prize Winner, the book on the bestseller lists and fi ve minutes with Imraan Coovadia 06 COVER Kenneth Tebogo Middleton presents indulgent, elevated comfort foods 10 FICTIONJennie Godfrey refl ects on the eighties, the best in new fi ction, and a book that asks what you would do if you could rewind love 14 AFRIKAANS Martin Steyn oor sy nuwe bundel kortverhale 16 ENCHANTED SHELF Samantha Sotto Yambao’s new dream-like journey 17 NATURE Your ultimate guide to the Mother City: Cape Town 22 WELLBEING From Deepak Chopra, how we can transform our sense of self forever 24 HEALTH Marina Wright’s honest account of postpartum struggle that ultimately sparked her path to healing 25 FOOD Ways to give your gut the love it deserves, including recipes, and a leg of lamb recipe fi t for any special occasion 32 ON MY MIND Phuthuma Nhleko on Africa’s level of preparedness for rapid population growth Johannesburg| Growthpoint Business Park, Unit 12A, 162 Tonetti Street, Halfway House Ext 7, Midrand, 1685 | 011 327 3550 Cape Town | Estuaries No 4, Oxbow Crescent, Century Avenue, Century City, 7441 | 021 460 5400 © Copyright Penguin Random House South Africa (Pty) Ltd. The Penguin Post is published by Penguin Random House South Africa. All rights reserved. Reproduction without the written permission of the editor is strictly forbidden. Editor Lauren Mc Diarmid Designer Sean Robertson Sub Editor Frieda Le Roux Contributors Imraan Coovadia, Kenneth Tebogo Middleton, Jennie Godfrey, Samantha Sotto Yambao, Martin Steyn, Phuthuma Nhleko Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the authors and do not necessarily refl ect those of the publisher. Lauren Mc Diarmid ThePost@penguinrandomhouse.co.za 17VOLUME 40 2 bookscape news | snippets | what’s new The literary world can’t stop talking about Flesh, David Szalay’s haunting, beautifully restrained novel that claimed the 2025 Booker Prize. The book follows István, a boy growing up in a Hungarian apartment block, through the turbulent years that carry him from a secret teenage relationship to military service and, eventually, to the glossy but hollow world of London’s elite. What makes Flesh so unforgettable is what it leaves unsaid. The prose is pared down to the bone – taut, deliberate, and charged with silence. As the Booker judges noted, “we don’t know what the protagonist looks like, but this never feels like a lack … somehow, it’s the absence of words that allows us to know István.” Szalay turns understatement into revelation, inviting readers to feel rather than simply observe. At its core, Flesh is a meditation on masculinity, class, and what it means to inhabit a body in the modern world. It’s about the physical weight of living – and the emotional disconnection that can accompany success. “It is also about what is fundamentally unsayable,” one critic remarked, “hovering beyond the reach of language.” Szalay has said he wanted to write about “what it’s like to be a living body in the world,” and he does so with quiet brilliance. Spare yet deeply human, Flesh is the kind of novel that lingers – unsettling, profound, and impossible not to talk about. Everyone’s talking about … The Winner of the Booker Prize 2025 IT’S FREE! Visit www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/ penguin-post and sign up to receive each new edition directly to your inbox. Flesh is out now. DOMINATING THE BESTSELLER LISTS When the Cranes Fly South by Lisa Ridzén “When the Cranes Fly South is a compelling read, skilfully developing the character of an ordinary man, flawed, thoughtful and all too human. It is poignant and ultimately thoroughly satisfying.” artSMart PHOTOGRAPHS: Jonas MatyassyVOLUME 40 3 UPFRONT Nadia Duvenage is book-obsessed and coffee-fuelled. She devours thrillers, fantasy and romance like it’s a sport, and lives with curiosity, comfort, and a touch of chaotic book-girl energy. “I haven’t read a Lisa Jewell book I didn’t like, and Don’t Let Him In is another great one. We follow a man who goes by the name Nick Radcliffe. He’s a conman who likes to take advantage of women. He marries them, convinces them they need to spend money, and then uses that money to persuade his next victim. That’s until his latest con’s daughter, Ash, starts digging a little deeper into who he really is. Once she does, it’s the beginning of the end for him. Ash is such a smart and strong female main character, despite having faced a load of challenges in life – and she tackles this new challenge all while grieving the death of her father. My least favourite character, without a doubt, is Nick. I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to dive into the book and physically hurt him! But every story needs a villain, and he certainly portrayed this part. This book was so good yet at the same time, so frustrating! I devoured it in a week and highly recommend it for fans of books packed with twists and turns.” Don’t Let Him In is out now. MUST of the MONTH A hamper of books from this issue valued at R1 500 is up for grabs to one lucky reader. To enter, scan the code using your phone camera, or visit www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/ competitions. Ts & Cs apply. Entries close 28 February 2026. WIN! WIN! WIN! WOMEN’S STORIES NOBODY’S GIRL by Virginia Roberts Giuffre Giuffre bravely confronted Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse, reclaimed her voice, and fought for justice, leaving a lasting legacy of courage and resilience, and advocacy for women everywhere. A HYMN TO LIFE by Gisèle Pelicot The author reveals the decade of abuse by her ex-husband, exposes dozens of accomplices, and challenges societal shame, inspiring a global movement while reclaiming her voice and demanding justice. 4k followers @reader_nadia #bookstagram BOOK OF LIVES by Margaret Atwood The award-winning writer profi les her extraordinary life, from her wild northern childhood to writing The Handmaid’s Tale, tracing the experiences that shaped her into a literary icon. “It’s true that killing time on the Internet often doesn’t feel especially fun these days. But it doesn’t need to feel fun in order to dull the pain of fi nitude. It just needs to make you feel unconstrained.” Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand WeeksUPFRONT VOLUME 40 4 Five minutes with … IMRAAN COOVADIA In An Enemy of the People, you write beautifully about a father’s wonder at the uniqueness and complexity of his children. What do you do differently when writing about children? Children are small, interesting animals like adults are larger animals, generally not so interesting. The connection between adults and children is interesting though. It has something to do with why one animal fits into another, the way a dog fits into a family. I was trying to pursue that idea. Also important to try to avoid mawkishness and cuteness. The action in the book is very much set in Cape Town’s CBD and the seaside suburb of Muizenberg. How do you find giving voice to a real place? Muizenberg is fascinating as an idea: a prototype of a country without borders. In some ways it’s the most South African suburb in South Africa. You’ve written several realist novels, but you’ve also made forays into science fiction and non-fiction. What inspired these changes in genre? I guess nothing is working. To borrow an image from Tolstoy, as a writer A bit of a literary chameleon, with An Enemy of the People, Cape Town based Imraan Coovadia is back with a novel on student protests, tax evasion and how to choose a school for one’s children. An Enemy of the People hits shelves in February. PHOTOGRAPH: Gerhard Muller you dig in the same place, until it gets too difficult. Then you try somewhere else. But storytelling is an art in itself, somewhat independent of the material. You write about difficult, sticky issues. How do you keep a lightness at the same time? I’m not sure I do. J.M. Coetzee said somewhere, “It’s bad when I write. Worse when I don’t.” I don’t believe that. But one reason the current generation of AIs, trained on a corpus of internet language, is doomed to fail, in my opinion, is that language and reality are usually at cross-purposes. Once you know this you don’t have to sound heavy just because things are heavy. Do you think it is a novelist’s task (responsibility?) to entertain? If I could, I would. But yes. In some way or another a novel should thrill you line by line. Not only through car chases, but partly through car chases. Do you have an unhealthy interest in South African news? All news. Do you know the current president of Romania won the International Math Olympiad two years in a row? through FindingVOLUME 40 7 COVER Kenneth Tebogo Middleton’s Paradise celebrates indulgent, elevated comfort food. From Facebook experiments to his debut cookbook, he invites readers into a joyful, fearless journey of taste where flavour, tradition, and creativity meet. “W hen I look back on the making of this book, the thing that surprises me most is how much I enjoyed the struggle. Not the recipes themselves – creating them was a joy – but the entire journey of wrestling with deadlines, navigating unexpected obstacles, and slowly discovering my own voice through the work. I had never written a cookbook before. I had no reference point for the rhythm of recipe development, the discipline it demands, or the strange moments of doubt that creep in. All I knew was that I had a deadline and a head full of ideas I needed to translate into dishes other people could cook. In the early weeks, everything moved slowly. I was figuring out how best to communicate a recipe – how long should it be? How descriptive? How do I ensure someone reading it far from my kitchen can recreate what I tasted? Some days I had to churn out several recipes to stay on track. On others, a single one would take hours of tweaking, tasting, adjusting, and rewriting. And then there were the rains … those wild, flooding storms Botswana had last year. I remember one day driving out to get ingredients, hoping to finish two recipes before midnight. I crossed one bridge, then another, and suddenly I was trapped between rising waters and a line of cars going nowhere. I couldn’t move forward, couldn’t turn back. Just sat there, watching water swallow the road. I should have filmed it – what a behind-the-scenes moment that would’ve been – but at the time all I could think about was getting home to cook. Ironically, the difficulty became the part I loved. Every challenge pushed me deeper into the work, forced me to commit. When I finally crossed the finish line – exhausted, fulfilled, and proud – I realised the struggle had baked itself into the book. And maybe that’s why Paradise feels so true to me: it wasn’t easy, but it was honest. My food journey began with a Facebook group: Foodies Botswana. At the time, I was searching for something meaningful to pour myself into. I had just left the world of marketing agencies and graphic design, and social media felt like this wild, constantly changing frontier I wanted to understand. I made groups about everything – fitness, lifestyle, random ideas – but the one that stuck was food. That community motivated me to get in the kitchen, enjoy the cooking and experimentation processes, share what I’d done, and learn from others doing the same. Then I started my Instagram page. The early days were mostly photos. Step-by-step pictures on a clean white background – I found a style that felt right to me, where each ingredient was isolated and celebrated. Then COVID arrived, and suddenly I had time. I realised I needed to move into video like the creators I admired. That transition wasn’t smooth. I had to learn equipment, lighting, editing, everything. But once it clicked, everything else did too. I was cooking constantly, testing other people’s recipes, studying flavours, building a foundation that later crystallised into my own way of doing things. Over time, I discovered I loved indulgent dishes – recipes with depth, richness, texture. I also loved taking something traditional and elevating it without losing its roots. When the idea of a cookbook came, those two things fused into a direction that felt unmistakably mine. There’s no single recipe in the book that defines me – there are several. The Luxury Seswaa, for one. I took a traditional dish, meat normally boiled simply with water, and amplified it with stock, bone marrow, herbs – just enough to make it richer without straying from its soul. Then there’s the Banana Fat Cakes, which capture my love for playful indulgence, and the roasted Next >