With the eyes of the world upon it, South Africa is buys re-inventing itself from Euro- to Afrocentric, the country’s cultural landscape is changing, in art and design as well as politics. This colourful book affirms the energy with which South Africa’s interior design scene is flourishing, focusing on around thirty houses, most designed within the last decade, often drawing on international trends, but at the same time reinterpreting local traditions and reflecting their owners’ desire to be truly African.

To seek out interesting houses, the renowned photographer Solvi dos Santos criss crossed the land, covering Mediterranean Cape Town, Highveld Johannesburg and Pretoria, tropical Durban, the rural backroads of Zululand and the big game safariland of the Lowveld. She found an amazing range of homes, including a vast industrial style loft in the centre of Cape Town, a converted concrete stable block surrounded by fields of prickly pear cacti, a Victorian town house with an eclectic mixture of personal objects, a former fisherman’s cottage overlooking a harbour, an African hunting lodge set in bush on the edge of Kruger national Park and a Cape Dutch farmhouse, part of a wine estate in the same family for eight generations.

Desmond Colborne interviewed the owners of the houses, finding the links between the places possessions and personalities. The Guide at the end of the book, with its list of local galleries, shops, restaurants, hotels and guest houses. will prove invaluable for vistors to this extraordinary country