Hearts on sleeves

The Woman in Me

Britney Spears

A million copies of this book have already been sold in the US, testament to the endless curiosity around the onetime Princess of Pop. It recounts her rise to the very stratosphere of fame, where she burned — and burned out — brightly. Her revelation that she’d aborted boyfriend Justin Timberlake’s baby has used up all the headlines, but there is much more to her recollections of the pain and pressures of fame, the betrayals, abandonment, and yawning losses she has experienced, and her petrifying mental-health breaks. We can only salute her.

Jojo: Finally Home

Johannes Radebe

Few South Africans have shimmered on the international stage as alluringly as Jojo, the star of Strictly Come Dancing and now his own touring shows. Watching his lithe elegance, it is hard to see the little boy on the streets of Zamdela township in Sasolburg, the “sissyboy” bullied for playing with Barbies who learned to dance on the cement floor of the community centre. Jojo’s story has a single truth to it: that enough love in a child’s life can drive them, sustain them, and help deliver them to their destination.

Son of a Whore

Herman Lategan

A bestseller last year in Afrikaans as Hoerkind and now reaching a whole other audience in English, this is one of the most outstanding memoirs to come along in a long while. Lategan is well known as a journalist, commentator, sabre-tongued raconteur, and mondain. But his life’s path, his origin story, so to speak, is so painful in parts as to make the reader gasp. Born to a single mother in a flaky boarding house on Kloof Street in Cape Town, he was constantly passed about from one unstable place — not home — to another, enduring insidious abuse, the ground ever shifting beneath his feet. Later years would find him in New York trailing Andy Warhol, sleeping homeless on a bench in the Company’s Garden in Cape Town, and tearing about with fashion designer Errol Arendz in his white Porsche. He’s lived in penthouses and a Salvation Army hostel, flown first class and had no car. His whole life has been stained by alcohol and addiction, yet his outlook is one of deep humanity and humour. Shot through with loneliness and longing and a wild wit, it’s an unforgettable book.

Worthy

Jada Pinkett Smith

The gorgeous actor unleashes her “inner panther” in this intimate and revealing reflection on her life. It’s a dramatic arc from dealing drugs on the grungy streets of Baltimore to haute Hollywood, marriage to Will Smith, and a very public family life. Little did we know when Smith klapped Chris Rock at the Oscars that the couple had been living apart for years. Hers is a complex, closely examined life.

The Race to Be Myself

Caster Semenya

Semenya’s long-awaited life story is finally here, and the garlanded athletic star is not treading lightly. She writes of the humiliation and abuse she has suffered over the years, on the track and off, and the appalling investigations and tests to which she has had to submit. But she leavens the chapters with warm childhood memories growing up in Limpopo and the love of her family and her wife, Violet Raseboya. This is an inspiring, surprising book, at heart a moving call for compassion.

My Big Fat Greek Taverna

Costa Ayiotis

Capetonians — and many up-country visitors — will have fond memories of Limonia, the merry Greek taverna in Hout Bay that drew crowds for years. Its burly, affable proprietor Costa Ayiotis had thrown up a career as a lawyer and diplomat to the United Nations to open the restaurant. Stifled by the strict protocols and stuffy routine of the diplomatic world, he longed to live by the sea and serve up the simple, flavourful food of his Greek heritage. He soon found he needed all his diplomatic skills to deal with some of the customers who stepped over the threshold. Warm and amusing, Ayiotis is a natural storyteller with a wry eye for human nature.

• Michele Magwood is an award- winning literary critic

• From the December edition of Wanted, 2023.