Mix It! Voices Of The Bo-Kaap

Shereen Misbach-Habib and Michael Hutchinson

96pp; Paperback; 240 x 165mm; ISBN 9780796035035

Nestled near the centre of Cape Town is a dynamic, vibrant, colourful community, which is often overlooked.

The Bo-Kaap is one of South Africa’s historical and cultural gems – you can walk back through time and get some sense of what the city must have been like when the first slaves were brought from Java and Indonesia to work in the newly established Cape Colony during the 18th and early 19th century.

Nestled near the centre of Cape Town is a dynamic, vibrant, colourful community, which is often overlooked.

The area is also home to the oldest Mosque in South Africa, and the oldest Muslim graveyard.  But the Bo-Kaap is changing.

Mix It! Voices of the Bo-Kaap presents the reader with a fresh take on an old place – both looking back, providing a fascinating insight into what the Bo-Kaap was like in days gone by, and looking forward, contrasting the past with present popular culture and foregrounding the aspirations of a new generation. The book captures the diverse voices of the people of this area, where tradition meets modernity, tapping into the collective memory of its residents, and presenting a wonderful account of oral history, and givesthe reader a glimpse into a community in transition, as long-established families move out of the area and new faces move, and discusses how the gentrification of this historical area is impacting on it and its inhabitants.

Mix It! Voices of the Bo-Kaap is a slim and lightweight travelogue – perfect for packing into a suitcase, or carrying in a backpack as one explores the many and varied delights that the historical and contemporary Bo-Kaap offers the visitor.

Shereen Misbach-Habib was born and grew up in the Bo-Kaap.  Although she has lived in other places throughout her life, the Bo-Kaap is now her home.  Shereen, a font of local knoweldge, is a tour guide and runs Tana Baru Tours, which has been widely recognised for its informative walking tours of the area. She is also an excellent cook and helped establish and run the popular Noon Gun restaurant, which serves traditional Cape Malay food.  Mix It! is her first book.

Michael Hutchinson has travelled widely and is passionate about cultural heritage, having lived with the Bedouin in the deserts of Sinai, the Batwa pygmies in the Impenetrable Forest of Uganda, and the Quecha on the islands of Lake Titicaca in Peru.  This is his second book on the Bo-Kaap; the first is the widely acclaimed, Bo-Kaap – Colourful Heart of Cape Town published in 2006.

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