Twenty years ago Rian Malan wrote the best-selling book My Traitor’s Heart. Readers were both entranced and repelled by a remarkable book that cut to the heart of South Africa with its honesty and power. It still sells today.

Malan’s new book Resident Alien is a provocative and engaging collection of the best of his writings that have appeared in the likes of The New Yorker, Rolling Stone and Esquire, since My Traitor’s Heart.

Crisscrossing South Africa – and further afield – in a quest to understand the land and continent of his birth – Malan does time with an extraordinary cast of characters: from vigilantes and outlaws to beauty queens and truckers; from Sol Kerzner to Jackie Selebi; from JM Coetzee to the last Afrikaner in Tanzania.

Never one to avoid getting his hands dirty, nor shy of controversy, Malan’s writing has landed him in hot water from just about everyone. Whether taking on the music industry, the government, or spending time with the AIDS denialists, he has earned the enmity of all.

But Malan’s honesty, his unwavering support for the underdog, and the unique power of his prose, make him one of South Africa’s most important writers.