THE CURSE AND THE CUP

375pp., paperback, Reston, 2014

Vuyisa Lingani and his son Manga, legendary left-arm spinners who couldn't play international cricket for South Africa because they were black, die within hours of each other in a bizarre tragedy.

"Cricket has generated a large literature, but it has scarcely touched on the human dramas that played themselves out under the violent and twisted system of apartheid. Gaurav Bhalla's The Curse and the Cup does so, undaunted. It is a remarkable multi-generational saga about the Lingani family and Mama Nonkosi's curse that has until now prevented the Proteas from winning the World Cup. Will the writer - like a modern-day sangoma - finally, in telling this story, lift this curse?" Professor André Odendaal, CEO Cape Cobras, Author of The Story of an African Game