For those who hoped that the rainbow nation emerging miraculously from the ashes of apartheid would bed down into a pluralistic and genuinely multiracial democracy, this trio of books provides a painful dose of disappointing scepticism.

The Economist offers a capsule review of R.W. Johnson’s South Africa’s Brave New World: The Beloved Country Since the End of Apartheid, Andrew Feinstein’s After the Party: Corruption, the ANC and South Africa’s Uncertain Future, and Alec Russell’s Bring Me My Machine Gun: The Battle for the Soul of South Africa, from Mandela to Zuma.