by André Brink

Born in Vrede, South Africa, in 1935, André Brink was one of the first Afrikaner writers to produce anti-apartheid, politically charged literature in South Africa. (Afrikaner—the former term was Boer—refers to whites who descend mainly from the early Dutch but also from the early German and French settlers in the region.) Brink has since become a writer of international renown, publishing regularly in both Afrikaans and English. In the 1950s he earned masters of arts degrees in both English and Afrikaans literature, and then, from 1959 until 1961, engaged in postgraduate study at the Sorbonne in Paris. Brink later became part of the experimental Afrikaner “Sestiger” movement (“Writers of the Sixties”), and in 1968 planned to settle in Paris along with the exiled poet and fellow Sestiger writer, Breyten Breytenbach. However, the Parisian student revolt that year inspired Brink to return...