SOURCE: A review of A Chain of Voices and Houd-denbek, in World Literature Today, Vol. 57, no. 2, Spring 1983, pp. 339-40.

In the following review of A Chain of Voices/Hou-den-bek, Toerien points out the novel's strengths and failings and compares the English and Afrikaans versions.

Brink's new novel was simultaneously published in English and Afrikaans, the latter version under the title of the remote South African farm ("Shut Your Trap") where an abortive slave rebellion took place in the early nineteenth century. That rebellion provides the basis of the novel, which is presented as a series of monologues by a large cast of protagonists, most of whom are named in the actual indictment and verdict which frame the novel. Brink gives the participants flesh and blood and lets them speak for themselves.

The time is 1828, about thirty years after the Cape has been taken over by the British. Dutch...