• This Life
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Archipelago Books

This Life

This Life

by Karel Schoeman, translated from the Afrikaans by Else Silke

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Written by one of South Africa's most celebrated writers, This Life considers both the past and future of the Afrikaner people through four generations of one family. Told from the perspective of one woman in her final days, and beautifully written in Schoeman's poetic, lyrical style, it is a remarkably vivid account of a 200 year-old culture and history that has been irrevocably lost. A quietly powerful book about memory and reconciliation.

Additional Book Information

Series: Archipelago Books
ISBN: 9780914671152
Pages: 210
Publication Date:

Praise

For all that Schoeman’s novel summons up grand themes, its handling of them is subtle and sometimes mysterious, arriving at its most powerful moments unpredictably and honestly.
—Kirkus

The meandering, exploratory narrative is at once beautiful and heartbreaking.
—Publishers Weekly

The giant of Afrikaans literature, in Else Silke’s lucid translation, gives Sussie a whispering, almost incredulous voice as she sifts through the evidence from her life, pursuing answers to the mystery of her childhood... The Schoeman protagonists are slender, quiet, almost invisible. One of the author’s most striking skills is his ability to turn these lethargic figures, so distant from their own inner lives and needs, into objects of empathy.
—Nathaniel Popkin, The Wall Street Journal

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