Litnet

André P Brink (1935) is one of the most versatile figures in South African literary circles. His novels have been translated into some 30 languages. Brink has twice been nominated for the Booker Award and has been on the shortlist for the Nobel Prize various times since 1979. His international accolades include the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize in 1980, and the French Prix Médicis Éstranger for the best translated literature. In 1992 he was awarded the Mosimaniën Prize for Human Rights. He has received the CNA Award three times for Olé (1965), Rumours of rain (1978) and A chain of voic es (1982). In 1997 he won the Mondello Five Continents prize for World Literature Imaginings of sand. In 1999 he was awarded the WA Hofmeyr prize for Duiwelskloof. He also received the Hertzog prize twice for Die jogger (2000) and Donkermaan (2001). Brink’s fifteenth novel, The other side of silence, was second place in the The Commonwealth Prize for Literature (Africa Region) and received the Sunday Times Fiction prize.

His much publicised earlier novel Lobola vir die lewe (1962) represented a new direction in Afrikaans prose. This novel brought him into close contact with the other leading Afrikaans writers of the sixties and he played a major role in their struggle against the harsh censorship system of the apartheid regime. The ban in 1974 on his novel Kennis van die aand (1973) led indirectly to the formation of the Afrikaanse Skrywersgilde (Guild of Afrikaans Writers) in 1975. As a leading member of the Guild, Brink was active in pleading for clemency for the then imprisoned Breyten Breytenbach.
 

Opgedateer/Updated: 2006-09-01
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