A few weeks ago Nigel Beale interviewed André in our home in Cape Town.
I met Andre Brink recently at his home in Cape Town. (His lovely young wife Karina greeted me at the door and led me into his book-lined study. Before entering the house however, I encountered this in the garden:) [photo left]. Once seated we talked mostly about his life, about his father, about love and duty, justice, Apartheid, inter-racial sex, J.M. Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer; his love affair with poet Ingrid Jonker, her suicide, her poem ‘Plant me a Tree,’ English as his second language, Picasso, recommended wines and staying in South Africa, despite his nephew having been shot dead by intruders last year at his home just north of Johannesburg.
To listen to the audio interview click here.
Memoir offers a textured narrative of a life less ordinary lived to the full
Review by Rob Gaylard
THE COVER photo of Brink’s autobiography shows a young, innocent-looking Brink, aged 13, bursting with pride at his first kill.
He holds a springbok between his legs; his hands grasp the fork of its horns. This is the author’s initiation into the casual violence of the hunt, part of what was expected of him as a boy, part of the price to be paid for acceptance by family, by friends, by volk.
The opening chapters evoke the world of Brink’s childhood, the various dorps in which his father served as magistrate, and the sharpness and clarity of the writing make these among the most memorable parts of the narrative.
A leitmotif running through the memoir is the gratuitous “’surplus of violence” that seems foundational to our society. The young André grows up being proud of his father, the magistrate who dispenses justice,”second only to God” – but this is the same man who, one unforgettable Saturday morning, ignores the plea of a desperate, badly beaten black man who arrives at his house, and sends him back to the police – the very people who had beaten him in the first place.
It’s the author’s first, shocking intimation of “the long, long history of excess”. For the young boy, it is perhaps the end of innocence.
The early chapters trace the conflicts that were eventually to lead Brink into open rebellion against the norms of his people.
At the time, and just as importantly, we see the incipient writer discovering the potential of words to shape and express experience. After his first exposure to English, language is no longer something to be taken for granted.
Continue reading: Memoir offers a textured narrative of a life less ordinary lived to the full
(Cape Argus, 27 April 2009)
The latest edition of the Groot Verseboek was launched last Friday at the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town.
The following interview about the anthology appeared in today’s edition of Die Burger: “Louise Viljoen gesels met André P. Brink”
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The Oliewenhuis Art Museum in Bloemfontein will host Renée le Roux’s RETROSPECTIVE EXHIBITION. The exhibition will be opened by André on 27 September 2007, at 7 pm in The Reservoir:
16 Harry Smith Street, Bloemfontein
tel.: 051-4479609
e-mail: oliewen@nasmus.co.za
Join Renée le Roux for a walkabout on Friday, 5 October 2007, at 11 am.
Judging from the success of her last two exhibitions (at the Sasol Art Museum in Stellenbosch in July 2007, and at the Irma Stern Museum in Cape Town in September 2006), a retrospective of this remarkable artist’s work is going to be one of this year’s visual art highlights. Certainly not to be missed!
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The 2007 National Arts Festival in Grahamstown is on the roll.
Anton Brink, André’s oldest son, is exhibiting his paintings at one of the venues:
- The Green Gallery, Albany Museum (in the Albany complex’s Natural History building, Somerset Street; click here for map).
Capetonians will be able to view the exhibition, entitled FRAGILE, when it comes to the Everard Read Gallery in Cape Town at the end of August.
Some of you might be familiar with Anton’s work from André’s book covers – two pictured here.
