André Brink

A flawed result – but this poll gives me hope for a new South Africa

by André Brink

Voters’ queues snaked around many city blocks in South Africa on Wednesday in scenes reminiscent of the first democratic elections in 1994 – but the mood was less exuberant. On that day, for most of the millions who braved extremes of heat and inclement weather, that had been their first experience of casting a ballot in their lives.

How well I remember the mixture of delight and shock it had been for my good friend Mazisi Kunene, Zulu poet and for many years the ANC’s chief representative in Europe: delight, because after 38 years in exile he’d come back, almost 70 years old, to take part in the democratic process to which he’d devoted most of his life ; shock, because in his trembling eagerness to make his mark between the photo of Nelson Mandela and the green, black and yellow flag of his party, he had drawn his cross in the blank square allotted to the Pan-Africanist Congress which headed the ballot paper.

This time the mood was more subdued. Yet after the two presidential terms of Thabo Mbeki, recent events had, for the first time since the transition to democracy, begun to cast clouds of doubt over the ANC’s arrogant assurance of an automatic landslide majority.

The unexpected split in the ruling party, the emergence of a predominantly black new party, the Congress of the People (COPE), the investiture of Kgalema Motlanthe as caretaker president late in 2008, and the persisting grave doubts surrounding the moral and political qualities of the president-to-be, Jacob Zuma, put the whole country under pressure.

(Evening Standard, 24 April 2009)

Continue reading: A flawed result – but this poll gives me hope for a new South Africa

Die andere Seite der Stille (The Other Side of Silence) was singled out for the German litprom-Bestenliste (Litprom – Best List).

The Litprom List promotes books in German translation by writers from Asia, Africa and Latin America. Its latest edition includes works by Rawi Hage, Georges Anglade, Sergio Olguín, Louis-Philippe Dalembert, Gastón Baquero, Tomás González and André.

Die andere Seite der Stille

Übersetzung: Michael Kleeberg

André Brink erzählt die Geschichte der Hanna X zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts. Nach Jahren der Erniedrigung und des Missbrauchs in einem Bremer Waisenhaus kehrt Hanna ihrer Heimat den Rücken und reist nach Deutsch-Südwestafrika, wo die Siedler nach deutschen Frauen verlangen. Doch statt Freiheit erfährt sie dort nur Gewalt und Verstümmelung, bis schließlich die Zeit der Vergeltung kommt. Grausam und poetisch – die Tragödie des deutschen Kolonialismus im Spiegel eines zerstörten Frauenlebens.

Weltempfänger 2/2009

Ganz frisch: Die zweite und aktuelle litprom-Bestenliste “Weltempfänger 2/2009″ mit den 7 besten Büchern in deutscher Übersetzung von Autorinnen und Autoren aus Afrika, Asien und Lateinamerika. Im Dschungel der vielen Neuerscheinungen ist der “Weltempfänger” Orientierungshilfe für Feuilleton und Buchhandel und nicht zuletzt für Leserinnen und Leser.

Mitglieder der Jury: Ilija Trojanow (Vorsitz), Katharina Borchardt, Anita Djafari, Andreas Fanizadeh, Dr. Karl-Markus Gauß, Navid Kermani, Dr. Kristine Pfoser, Arno Widmann und Dr. Thomas Wörtche.

“Om kaal te loop”

In Brittanje word André P. Brink se ’n Vurk in die Pad: ’n Memoir reeds deur groot name besing, en in Suid-Afrika het dit pas die rakke getref – in Afrikaans en Engels. WILLEMIEN BRÜMMER het met dié skrywer gepraat oor weerloosheid, sy familie en Ingrid Jonker.

Want al het hy nog altyd vasberade geweier om toe te gee aan uitgewers, vriende en vreemdelinge se versoeke om ’n outobiografie te skryf, het die oomblik van waarheid tóg nou, op 73, vir hom aangebreek. Ná 23 romans, “omtrent sewe dramas, sowat 70 vertalings en nege niefiksie-boeke” het hy uiteindelik sy memoires ’n Vurk in die Pad geskryf. En soos hy (as fiksieskrywer) beken: “Gooi ’n riviervis in die see, en hy súkkel.”

Die keerpunt het gekom op daardie veelbesonge treinrit in Desember 2004 tussen Wene en Salzburg toe ’n “halsoorkop gesprek” begin het “wat nou, vier jaar later, nog nie bedaar of asem geskep het nie”. Dié rit was sy eerste ontmoeting met die pragtige Poolse Karina (32), sedert 2006 die vyfde Miesies Brink, wat hom vergesel het na ’n konferensie wat sy help reël het.

Soos altyd wanneer hy oor haar praat, kry hy ’n geluksalige gesigsuitdrukking. “Ons het twee lewens gehad wat uit sulke verskillende dele van die wêreld kom en ’n mens eenvoudig aan die praat gesit het – net om in te haal met jou verlede, dat die ander een iets meer van jou verstaan. Dit was ’n werklike ontdekkingstog sáám met die ander deur mens se herinneringe, en uiteindelik het dit my laat besluit waarom nie maar begin skryf en kyk waar ek uitkom nie?”

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Tune in:

Nigel Vermaas’s 1997 serialisation of André’s Imaginings of Sand is being broadcast on SAfm from Monday, 25 February at 19:45.

The serialisation will run Mondays to Thursdays – 45 episodes in all.

First article in a series of best-loved SA bookshops.

The PROTEA BOOKSHOP in Stellenbosch – “more than just a bookshop” – is one of five branches of the PROTEA family. (The other branches are in Potchefstroom, Nelspruit and Pretoria, which has two).

It opened to booklovers in June 2002 under the management of the acclaimed Afrikaans poet Louis Esterhuizen and his wife Marlise Joubert, also an award-winning writer and painter (see Stellenbosch Writers for their respective biographies).

If you are looking for textbooks, philosophy books, any Afrikaans poetry volume or older Afrikaans fiction titles, works by Nobel laureates (pictured!), books on history, especially the South African War, or literary and academic magazines – in short, good literature – this is the place to go.

If it is not on the shelf, every attempt will be made to find any title, even those out of print.
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Following the horrific murder of Brett Goldin and Richard Bloom, last year the Oscar-award winner Jon Blair and the renowned writer and actor Antony Sher came to South Africa to make a documentary about the murder and the persistence of violence in the country. André was one of their interviewees for the project.

The result, Murder Most Foul, screens on M-Net’s Carte Blanche on Wednesday, September 26 at 9 pm.

For write-ups on the documentary see yesterday’s The Times and The Guardian.

The following excerpt is André’s contribution to an article by Martiens van Bart, published last Saturday (7 July 2007) in Die Burger and the Volksblad: “Woeste stryd om Naln”. Van Bart asked prominent Afrikaans writers and academics to respond to the Free State government’s intended budget cuts to the Nationale Afrikaanse Letterkundige en Navorsingsentrum (NALN) in Bloemfontein.

NALN is the equivalent of the National English Literary Museum (NELM) in Grahamstown.

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André is internet-shy, but he has consented to this blog with much curiosity and a pledge of full cooperation. As a devoted fan (and his wife), it will be my pleasure to inform you of his current publications, public appearances and, most importantly, his upcoming books.

This is a recent photo from Meiringspoort. I’m currently working on André’s extensive bibliography: you can view the first fruits of the work by clicking here.

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