The Jailer`s Book. Barris, Ken

Kagiso Publishers, 1996. 208 x 133mm; pictorial wraps; pp. 226. Wraps a bit creased with slight edgewear; name of previous owner inked out on title page. Very good condition. South African novel. "The Jailer's Book chronicles the relationship between a prison warder, Dolf, and a political prisoner, the writer Grintz. Dolf holds material power over the writer, but - through the instrument of his imagination - Grintz begins to reconstruct the warder's life. And in his dialogue with Dolf, Grintz subverts the warder's certainties, his sense of reality. Dolf begins to realise that the prison in which he works is something more than an institution where he finds himself employed. The prison becomes a metaphor of South African society where prisoners and warders are equally its citizens. But, while Dolf begins to approach the inner world, Grintz moves closer to hard reality ".