A Fork in the Road
Page 52
And, above all, Karina, you, for bringing a roundness and a happiness and a meaning to it all.
With love,
André
1935: Six months old, on my father’s lap.
1936: Some habits start early.
1938: With the Sotho nanny Aia who first made me conscious of the rhythms of language.
1938: With my sister Elbie on her first birthday.
1945: With my sisters Elbie and Marita.
1950: My father’s side of the family. My grandparents and Ouma’s sister, Aunt Anna, in the back row from middle to right, I am in the same row second from left, my father front row left, and my sister next to him and Johan on her left.
1950: A homemade boat on the farm dam of Oom Jannie and Auntie Dolly. My parents are far left, I am rowing.
1949: Preparing for a tennis match.
1953: The pianist, before I learned to accept my limitations.
1959: At the Place de la Concorde, Paris.
1963: With Etienne Leroux, Ingrid, Jan Rabie and Marjorie Wallace in Somerset West, near Cape Town.
1963: Ingrid on a holiday farm in Franschhoek.
1963: The same occasion.
1965: Ingrid’s funeral, with her family on the left. A few friends are restraining Jack Cope from jumping into the grave. (Copyright: Cloete Breytenbach)
1966: With Etienne Leroux and Breyten in the Rue Soufflot, Paris.
1967: After Ingrid, in Grahamstown.
1980: At the founding meeting of the Soweto PEN Centre, with Ahmed Essop, Es’kia Mphahlele, Nadine Gordimer and Sipho Sepamla.
1986: Addressing an anti-apartheid students’ meeting at Rhodes University.
1987: Visiting Dakar with a group of Afrikaners to meet the ANC in exile. I am in the second row, second from right.
1998: With Ariel Dorfman in Mandela’s cell in the prison on Robben Island.
2006: With the Russian soprano Anna Netrebko in Salzburg.
2007: With Carlos Fuentes and Nadine Gordimer in Johannesburg.
2006: In Sarajevo, with Antjie Krog in the striped shirt, and the French ambassadorial couple, Geneviève and Henry Zipper de Fabiani.
1998: With Olga.
2006: With my sons Anton and Danie at the restaurant of The Cock House in Grahamstown, the British Settler home where we lived in the 70s.
2006: Wedding with Karina. Back row: my children Sonja, Danie and Gustav. Sadly, Anton couldn’t make it.
2008: Karina.
2006: My birthday celebration with Karina.
2007: With Karina and Nelson Mandela in his Cape Town home.
Acknowledgements
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reproduce the extracts listed below. The publishers have endeavoured to seek permission from all appropriate parties and will be happy to rectify any oversights for future editions of this work.
The page references correspond to the printed edition from which this ebook was created. To find a specific word or phrase from the index, please use the search feature of your ebook reader.
p. vii: from Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama, first published in Great Britain by Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1TE
pp. 1–2: from an interview published in William Kentridge: Flute, edited by Bronwyn Law-Viljoen, published by David Krut Publishing, Johannesburg
p. 83: permission granted by Peter Louw for the author to quote and translate from ‘Julle is die oorheersers’ from the collection Versamelde gedigte by N.P. van Wyk Louw, co-published by Human & Rousseau and Tafelberg, Cape Town
p. 273: permission granted by Mrs E.H. Gili to quote from the essay ‘The theory and function of the duende’ from Lorca: Selected Poems by Federico García Lorca, translated and edited by J.L. Gili, published by Penguin, London
p. 330: from ‘The Ninth Elegy’ of Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by J.B. Leishman, published by Hogarth Press. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Ltd., London and Insel, Suhrkamp Verlag GmbH & Co., Frankfurt
p. 323: from ‘Every day you play’ translated by W.S. Merwin and p. 372 and p. 378: from ‘I’m explaining a few things’ translated by Nathaniel Tarn, both from Selected Poetry by Pablo Neruda, published by Jonathan Cape. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Ltd., London
p. 379: permission granted by Albie Sachs to reproduce an extract from his speech ‘Preparing Ourselves for Freedom’, quoted in Exchanges, edited by Duncan Brown and Bruno Van Dyk, published by University of Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg
p. 435: from Soul on Ice (first edition, 1969) by Eldridge Cleaver, published by McGraw-Hill, New York
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781409075356
www.randomhouse.co.uk
Published by Harvill Secker 2009
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Copyright © André Brink 2009
André Brink has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
First published in Great Britain in 2009 by HARVILL SECKER
Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road
London SW1V 2SA
www.randomhouse.co.uk
Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm
The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9781846552441 (hardback)
ISBN 9781846552458 (trade paperback)
www.vintage-books.co.uk