Andre Brink was a South African writer whose novels were often criticized by the South African government. Brink was educated in South Africa and France. He later became a professor of Afrikaans and Dutch literature at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa. In essence, this meant depicting sexual and moral matters and examining the political system in a way that rapidly antagonized the traditional Afrikaner reader. His novels presented increasingly bleak and bitter evidence of the disintegration of human values that occurs under apartheid. A Dry White Season, 1969, a white liberal investigates the death of a black activist in police custody. A Chain of Voices, 1982, recounts through many points of view a slave revolt in 1825. Brink's works were well received abroad, but two were banned from South Africa. Those books were Looking on Darkness and A Dry White Season. he determined to involve himself in the opposition to apartheid, and his books have explored both the temptations of exile and the compulsion to return to South Africa and oppose the racist government. His novel Kennis von dle Aand (Looking on Darkness) was banned in 1974 and he responded by beginning to write in English as well as Afrikaans.
A Dry White Season
A heart gripping, eye watering, investigation about two innocent victims tortured and put to death by political powers. This detective story raises many important issues about political abuse and political lies that have been recently common in the United States of America, "the land of the free." One of the most significant issues in the story is about enforcing laws that hurt not only the ones being tortured and killed but also the entire society who becomes captive of its government through fear. This is a very strong and powerful story, complete with excitement, suspense, drama, comedy and love; making it a great combination to facilitate the introduction of important issues and at the same time keep the reader intrigued while using humor and love to lighten-up the tension of the reader.
The Other Side of Silence
Hanna X is a young German woman who, after years of abuse in a Bremen orphanage, escapes to her country's colonies in southwest Africa, only to be even more badly brutalized--mutilated, even--by the men she has volunteered to serve. Disfigured and mute, she is banished to Frauenstein, a desert asylum for broken, unwanted women. When Hanna saves frail young Katja from the violent advances of a drunken soldier by beating him to death, her silent rage comes alive and the tenor of Brink's story shifts from suffering to revenge. Forming a militia from the scarred victims of colonial oppression, natives and immigrant women alike, Hanna declares war on the Reich itself, organizing attacks on German desert outposts and ultimately coming face-to-scarred-face with the persistent shadows of her childhood--as well as the man responsible for her horrible disfigurement. This is familiar territory for Brink, a South African whose explorations of violence, memory, and apartheid have won him praise and media attention. His latest proves provocative by evoking these themes within the unconventional setting of German colonialism.
An Instant in the Wind
In Brink's hands, in 1750, a naive but spirited white woman from the Cape accompanies her Swedish explorer husband into the upmapped interior, only to find herself alone when the husband dies and the Hottentot retainers head for the hills.
She is found by a runaway slave, Adam, who for reasons of his own agrees to set off with her to the Cape.
Brink vividly describes the country through which they must travel. Against its physical presence, the couple become lovers. All of this is good fun. Brink was writing at a time when black/white relationships were forbidden under apartheid law. Indeed, the book for a while was banned. He delivers us a vintage love story, full of sex and spirit. (Funny how Coetzee, 25 years later when inter-racial sex is no longer verboten, sees the politics of such relationships in an entirely different way).
