About the book:
Brink's brutal novel about a German woman shipped to colonial German South-West Africa as a "wife" for settlers, and what happens when she refuses the role.
Unflinching about colonial violence in a way few South African novels of his generation risked being.
Condition:
Great secondhand condition.
Mild wear to cover.
Age related tanning to pages.
All pages well bound and intact.
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About the author:
André Brink (1935 to 2015)
Born in Vrede in the Orange Free State, South Africa, in 1935 into an Afrikaner family, André Brink grew up within the cultural and institutional structures that built and defended apartheid. Educated at the University of Potchefstroom and later in Paris, he returned to South Africa changed by his exposure to existentialism and European literature. His insider status as an Afrikaner made his eventual rebellion against the system particularly powerful and costly.
His early success came with novels in Afrikaans, but international recognition arrived with Looking on Darkness (1974, originally Kennis van die Aand), the first Afrikaans novel banned by the apartheid government. Brink developed a style that combined psychological depth, political urgency, and lyrical intensity, often using historical settings or mythic elements to address contemporary South African realities.
Deeply influenced by Albert Camus, William Faulkner, Gabriel García Márquez, and the Afrikaans literary tradition he both inherited and challenged, Brink in turn became one of the most important voices in South African literature. He is adjacent to and influenced writers such as Nadine Gordimer, J.M. Coetzee, and later authors exploring apartheids moral legacy, racial identity, and the complexities of post-apartheid South Africa.
Recurring preoccupations include the moral distortions of apartheid, the personal cost of political systems, the clash between individual desire and societal pressure, guilt, betrayal, and the possibility (or impossibility) of genuine connection across racial lines. Major works include A Dry White Season, A Chain of Voices, The Wall of the Plague, and Praying Mantis. He wrote in both Afrikaans and English, often translating his own work.
Brink taught at the University of Cape Town for many years and remained an outspoken critic of injustice. He died in 2015.
André Brinks influence on South African and world literature is significant: he used the novel as a moral witness against apartheid while remaining utterly unique in his blend of psychological insight, political courage, and lyrical power.
