40 writers from Southern Africa offer reflections on their experience of boarding school. These are either extracts from autobiographies or pieces specially written for this collection. Included are the 2007 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature Doris Lessing; former President Nelson Mandela; South African-born international foodie and novelist Prue Leith OBE; former Vice-Chancellor of UCT and Director of the World Bank Mamphela Ramphele; and a range of writers including E K M Dido, Don Mattera, Alexandra Fuller, Imraan Coovadia, Ann Harries, Sihle Khumalo, Bessie Head, C J Driver, Lionel Abrahams, Willemien le Roux and Kathryn White. From Zimbabwe: Dambudzo Marechera; winner of the 2007 Noma Award for Publishing in Africa Shimmer Chinodya; and 2004 Commonwealth Writers' Prize winner Brian Chikwava; and from Angola: Simao Kikamba. Aspects covered include: being a 'newbie', initiation, bullying, punishment, food, midnight feasts, sexual shenanigans, friendship and love, to the extreme of running away from school. The reasons for going to boarding school differ greatly. Many black South Africans aspired to the elite mission-run boarding schools, while white Afrikaans-speaking farm children had little option but the koshuis in the town. State boarding schools are very different from private schools; and various Christian institutions are represented here.