Before I Forget_Brink
2006 Longlist

Before I Forget

artwork-image

ABOUT
THE BOOK

Chris Minaar is a writer; a distinguished South African writer, an old writer, a writer who has lost whatever gift he had for writing. It is on New Year’s Eve, courtesy of his stalled car, that he meets Rachel, a young sculptress, a good Samaritan who becomes the great love of his life, a love greater for being unfulfilled. Having believed that his remaining function should be to comfort his mother, more than a century old but now inclined to talk with alarming frankness about her life, he finds himself captivated by Rachel and drawn into a close friendship with her photographer husband George.

As their friendship develops Chris must reconcile himself to an unaccustomed type of intimacy but one that inevitably threatens this precarious triangular relationship. Woven through this is the story of his life and of a lifetime’s loving. For he has known many women in his time. Brief affairs, extended affairs, a marriage; intensely carnal encounters and tender attachments; women who leave him unexpectedly, those whose leaving is agonisingly protracted and those, perhaps the greater number, who never really go at all.

From Daphne, the troubled dancer, to Bonnie, his authoritarian father’s secretary, and Grethe, who arranges for her many lovers to meet at a party in her absence, these women define and inform his life. As it becomes clear that this book is the final writing act of Chris’s creative life so we understand that the recollection of these many loves is an attempt to bring order to an otherwise chaotic existence.

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR André
Brink

One of South Africa’s most distinguished writers, André Brink was born in 1935.

Poet, novelist, essayist and teacher, he began work as a University lecturer in Afrikaans and Dutch Literature in the 1960s. He began writing in Afrikaans, but when censored by the South African government, began to also write in English and became published overseas. He remains a key figure in the modernisation of the Afrikaans language novel. (From British Council)

One of South Africa’s most distinguished writers, André Brink was born in 1935.

Poet, novelist, essayist and teacher, he began work as a University lecturer in Afrikaans and Dutch Literature in the 1960s. He began writing in Afrikaans, but when censored by the South African government, began to also write in English and became published overseas. He remains a key figure in the modernisation of the Afrikaans language novel. (From British Council)

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Country
South Africa
Original Language
English
Author
Publisher
Secker & Warburg

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