Contrary: Critical Responses to the Novels of Andre Brink

Andr Philippus Brink (1935-) is one of South Africa's most distinguished, prolific and internationally best recognized writers. In South Africa, Brink rose to prominence as one of the Sestigers (Writers of the Sixties), a group of Afrikaans writers who challenged their literary establishment in the 1960s under the influence of European schools of thought and literary trends of the time, especially French existentialism. In his writing, Andr Brink interrogates power, violence, and inequality by probing silences: those of the past and those which threaten the new, democratic dispensation in South Africa. At the heart of his oeuvre lies the human condition as he turns to love, myth and history for inspiration. Published since the late 1980s, the criticism collected in this volume strives to be representative of the kind of research undertaken on Brink's work and give insight into a variety of its aspects, focusing primarily on its most significant part, the novels and their reception. The essays look at Brink's approach to the genre and its narrative techniques. They also contextualize Brink's writing in relation to existentialism, (post)colonialism, myth-making, magic realism, representations of gender and sexuality, the dialectic of history and fiction, the picaresque tradition, and the tensions between memory, narration and identity. The collection includes one of the best profiles on the life and work of Andr Brink, written by Nicholas Wroe of the Guardian, as well as an overview essay by Godfrey Meintjes which was originally published as three separate pieces. The combined text of the latter, like no other, introduces all of the important phases and influences of Brink's prose writing. The contributors are: A.J. Hassall, Neil Cochrane, Heilna du Plooy, Peter Horn, Richard Peck, Christell Stander, Nicholas Wroe, Isidore Diala, Marita Wenzel, Johan Anker, Lianne Barnard, Godfrey Meintjes, Monica Bungaro, Jochen Petzold, Ampie Coetzee, H.P. van Coller, Henriette Roos, Mathilda Bothma, Ute Kauer, Louise Viljoen, and Willie Burger.