Add a twist of humour to South African nostalgia with an excerpt from Hagen Engler’s new book Black Twitter, Blitz and a Boerie as Long as Your Leg
 More about the book!

Jacana Media has shared an excerpt from Hagen Engler’s new book Black Twitter, Blitz and a Boerie as Long as Your Leg!

This book is a celebration of South Africa’s iconic people, places, situations, songs, character traits and consumer products … every part of our culture that makes us happy and proud to be South Africans.

Black Twitter, Blitz and a Boerie as Long as Your Leg is a lighthearted, humorous read of multiple entries that can be dipped into at will. Optimistic, topical and definitely tongue-in-cheek, this book could easily be that last-minute gift that you pick up at the airport before you head back to the parental home for the holidays. Not too politically edgy – so as not to offend any sensitive elephants in the room – it draws on the great many things that South Africans do have in common, and that will give us all a moment to agree on something, for a change.

The book aims to list and celebrate the tiny, subtle aspects of South African life that we all experience but don’t always notice. Engler looks at icons of our shared South Africanness but drills a little deeper to make them more specific, a bit more ridiculous, a bit funnier, and hopefully to induce an excited exclamation from the reader of, ‘Yoh! That’s so true!’

Read an excerpt:

A fake pair of Ray-Bans from the robots

For 100 bucks. Sixty! Okay give me 80 and a cigarette! Sure, there you go. Now you look like Tom Cruise in Top Gun in 1986, but with psychedelic, reflective lenses that pop out of the frame every time you place them on a surface.

However, your R80 sunglasses will have all the loyalty and tenacity of a Scottish sheepdog, remaining by your side – or at least in your cubbyhole – for a full decade, while about six pairs of more expensive sunnies come and go.

Those Guccis you dropped several grand on? The authentic Ray-Bans? The Guess ones?

Even those Spitfires from Greenacres Mall in PE that were sat on, dropped off a quadbike, left at Simon and Brigitte’s braai and went missing after drinks in Braamfontein?

And after every one of those sunglasses moved on, like a reliable ex whose movements and body shape you just know instinctively, those fake Raybs were there to take you back.

They are still there now, in the storage panel of your car door, next to some KFC slips, a banana peel from May, a compact of Clinique foundation and a pen that’s stopped working.

Categories Non-fiction South Africa

Tags Black Twitter Blitz and a Boerie as Long as Your Leg Book excerpts Book extracts Hagen Engler Jacana Media


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