SOURCE: "Prospero's Nightmare," in Times Literary Supplement, No. 4691, February 26, 1993, p. 21.

In the following review, Gurnah identifies the narrative sources of The First Life of Adamastor. Among these sources are: the Khoi myths of Creation; the Portuguese poet Camões; and French novelist Rabelais: and Gurnah examines how Brink uses these sources to deal with "moral and historical issues."

In his epic poem The Lusiads (1572), Luis de Camões celebrates the Portuguese national myth through Vasco da Gama's first journey from Lisbon to Calicut round the southern tip of Africa. In the seventy-two years between the poem's publication and the events it celebrates, the Portuguese had raided and traded (mostly raided) their way along the west and east African coasts, the Malabar coast of India, and as far as Siam and Macao. They had also landed on several points along the coast of southern Africa. In his account of...