Etienne Leroux, Magersfontein, O Magersfontein! A Novel.

Etienne Leroux, Magersfontein, O Magersfontein! Translated by Ninon Roberts. Johannesburg: Hutchinson, 1983.

Hard cover, dustwrapper, 177 pages.

Yellow tape-marks inside dustwrapper, foxing on dustwrapper, endpapers, and the edges of the text-book, owner's name on the front free endpaper.

'Magersfontein is a real place and it was there in 1899 that the Battle of Magersfontein took place when twenty three thousand men were involved in a head-on confrontation between British and Boer forces. It ended in victory for the Boers, when thousands of Highland Brigade troops, along with their Brigadier, Andrew Wauchope, were mown down by the Boers because of British incompetence.

In Leroux's novel, a film and television crew, headed by Lord Sudden and Lord Seldom, accompanied by a motley cast of local and international actors, hangers-on, government officials and Le Grange, the local traffic cop, arrives at Magersfontein to recreate the battle. They succeed almost too well.

On publication in Afrikaans, this extremely controversial novel was the subject of much public debate, poking fun as it does at many of the sacred cows of South African society, and was eventually banned. In spite of this, the book was awarded both the Hertzog Prize and the CNA Literary Award.

When it was eventually released for sale, it became a runaway bestseller and the Afrikaans edition is now in its seventh printing.

This first English translation retains the original flavour of this ironic, satirical, witty, yet poignant book.

"Magersfontein is a play in irony where the absurd and the satirical and the grotesque and the comedy and the vulgar come together in the prose of this prosaic landscape." Lord Seldom.