André Brink is one of South Africa’s most eminent novelists. He is the author of seventeen works of fiction, has been twice shortlisted for the Booker Prize and is an outspoken recorder of South Africa’s turbulent history, from the days of apartheid to the present.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Brink writes feelingly of South Africa-the land, the black, the white, the terrible beauty and tragedy that lies therein.

-Publishers Weekly

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize

An Instant in the Wind is the passionate story of an escaped slave and a white woman lost in the African wilderness, and the unexpected love that flowers between them.

“Brink describes calamities and absurdities of the apartheid system with a cold lucidity that in no way interferes with high emotion and daring flights of the imagination.

-Mario Vargas Llosa, New York Times Book Review

“It is difficult to see how any South African novelist will be able to surpass the honesty of this novel or the real courage-both as artist and as [a] political man-which enabled Brink to write it.

-World Literature Today

“André Brink has gained a reputation in this country and in his native South Africa as a novelist unafraid to tackle the controversial subjects of mixed-race love affairs and marriages, of the injustices of apartheid, or racism in all its myriad forms.

-Book World

“The subject is important and the novelistic achievement impressive.

-Library Journal

“Tales of upper class women and primitive men combating the wilderness are nothing new. But I know of no other as honest, as beautifully told or as sad as this one.

-Sunday Plain Dealer

“An Instant in the Wind stands with the best of Alan Paton.

-Cleveland Plain Dealer

 

 

 

 

Review

ʼn Oomblik in die Wind

A Moment in the Wind

Instant in the Wind

3/22/2005

1975

by André P Brink

281pp

What is it that makes South African authors incapable of happy endings?  Having read and enjoyed JM Coetzee's bleak "Disgrace" I found Brink's novel. In Brink's hands, in 1750, a naive but spirited white woman from the Cape accompanies her Swedish explorer husband into the unmapped interior, only to find herself alone when the husband dies and the Hottentot retainers head for the hills.  She is found by a runaway slave, Adam, who for reasons of his own agrees to set off with her to the Cape.  Brink vividly describes the country through which they must travel. Against its physical presence, the couple become lovers. All of this is good fun. Brink was writing at a time when black/white relationships were forbidden under apartheid law. Indeed, the book for a while was banned. He delivers us a vintage love story, full of sex and spirit. (Funny how Coetzee, 25 years later when inter-racial sex is no longer verboten, sees the politics of such relationships in an entirely different way).

As Brink signals in the opening pages, however, there is no happy-ever-after. If there had been (the story purports to be based on truth), South Africa's history might have been different. At times, the writing has less to do with black and white than purple, especially as Brink creates a seaside idyll for his pair, but for my money it's a grand read. It recalls a time when white South African liberals believed if only people could see their true nature everything would be all right. Coetzee's darker - and more recent - version is that WHEN people are most true to their nature, South Africans have much to fear.

http://www.amazon.com/Instant-Wind-Andre-Brink-ebook/dp/B003BLY76S/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1430937688&sr=1-1&keywords=wind+andre+brink

Brief biography

Andre Philippus Brink on 29 May 1935 on Peace in the Free born. Brink moved to Lydenburg where he in 1952 of the Lydenburg High School matriculate. He obtained seven distinctions, the second student of the former Transvaal who could achieve this. He called for a BA degree in Potchefstroom study and his MA in English (1958) and African (1959) cum laude. He then comparative literature at the University of Sorbonne in Paris , France to study.

He was in 1961 as a lecturer at the Department of Afrikaans-Dutch at the Rhodes University in Grahamstown appointed. In 1962 appearedLobola for life , which is considered his debut work.

Brink's novel, knowledge of the night (1973) was the first African book banned the South African government.

[1] He translated his book, Knowledge of the evening in English and publish it abroad Looking on Darkness . It was the first time he has translated one of his own works. [2] And Brink his works written simultaneously in English and Afrikaans. [3] In 2008, in an eerie echo of a scene from his novel " A Chain of Voices ", his family was hit by tragedy. His cousin, Adrienne Brink for his wife and children were killed in their home in Gauteng.[4] [5] He is on 6 February 2015 at the age of 79 on a flight from Amsterdam to Cape Town late. He was on his way home after he received an honorary doctorate from a Belgian university.

Brink was married five times. His son, Anton Brink is an artist. [6]

Awards

Brink was a winning author. He received including the following awards:

1963 Eugene Price of the South African Academy for Science and Art for his play Caesar

1964 Reina Prinsen Geerligs Prize

1965 CNA Prize for his travel books Olé

1970 Academy Award for Translated Work of the South African Academy for Science and Art for his translation of Alice through the mirror (Lewis Carroll)

1978 CNA Prize for his novel Rumours of Rain (the English version of Rumours of Rain )

1980 Prix Médicis Etranger (France)

1980 Martin Luther King Memorial Prize (UK)

1982 Knight of the French Legion of Honour (France)

1982 CNA Prize for his novel A Chain of Voices (English version of Track-den-Foot )

1987 Officer of the French Order of Arts and Letters (France)

1994 Gustav Preller prize for Literature and Literary Criticism of the South African Academy for Science and Art

2000 Hertzog of the South African Academy for Science and Art for his drama The Jogger

2001 Hertzog Prize for his novel Dark Moon

Publications

Novels

1958 Mill at the Hang

1958/9 The Gebondenes

1960 Endless Ways

1962 Lobola for Life

1963 The Ambassador

1965 Orgy

1969 Maybe Never

1973 Notice of the night

1975 A Moment in the Wind

1978 Rumours of Rain

1979 Dry White Season A

1982 Bear-den-Bek

1984 The Wall of the Plague

1988 The First Life of Adamastor

1988 States of Emergency

1991 The Cancer get used to it

1993 Indeed

1995 Sand castles

1998 Duiwelskloof

2000 Dark Moon

2002 Beyond the Silence

2004 For I Forget

2005 Praying Mantis

2006 The Blue Door / The Blue Door

2008 Other Life

2012 Philida

Dramas

1956 The Band to our hearts

1961 Caesar

1962 The Suitcase

1965 Luggage (Suitcase, Bag, Drum)

1965 Elsewhere Sunny and Hot

1970 The Trial

1970 The Rebels

1971 Kinkels innie Cable

1973 The King of the Boendoe

1973 Africans pleasant

1974 Pavane

1976 The Hammer of Witches the

1979 tatters on Henry

1997 The Jogger

Travel Stories [ edit | edit source ]

1962/3 Pot Pourri-

1963 Sempre Diritto

1965 Ole

1969 Midi

1969 Paris-Paris Return

1970 Fado

Academic Works

1959 Order and Chaos

1967 Aspects of the New Prose

1971 The Poetry of Breyten Breytenbach

1974 Aspects of the New Drama

1976 Preliminary Report

1977 Jan Rabie's 21

1980 Second Interim Report

1983 Mapmakers: Writing in a State of Siege

1985 Literature in the arena

1985 Why Literature?

1987 Tell Science

1996 Reinventing a Continent: Writing and Politics in South Africa

1996 Destabilising Shakespeare

1998 The Novel: Language and Narrative from Cervantes to Calvino

Other Works

1961 Bakkies and his South Africa - 1 Gang

1962 Bakkies and his South Africa - 2 broke

1963 The story of Julius Caesar

1965 Red (5 stories in beam, in other)

1973 portrait of the woman as a girl

1973 The History of Uncle Kootjie bucket of Witgatworteldraai

1973 Brandy in South Africa

1974 Dessert Wine in South Africa

1974 The Slap of the Mill

1974 The Wine of Bowe

1979 In Camera: Portraits of South African Artists / In Camera: Portraits of South African Artists

1981 a bucket Little Wine

1981 toast

1983 Uncle Kootjie Bucket and the New Deal

1984 Loopdoppies

2009 A Fork in the Road (autobiography)

Omnibuses

1982 The Festival of Malles

1986 Mal and Other Stories

1990 Latin Travel

2006 With a Smile

Bonds

1977 Morning Song: A Collection Uys Krige on his birthday

1979 Little Adventure (Top Naeff)

1986 A Country Apart: A South African Reader (with JM Coetzee )

1994 SA 27 April 1994

1995 27 April - One Year Later / One Year Later

2000 Great Verseboek 2000

Translations

1962 Travellers to the Great Land ( Andre Dhôtel )

1962 The Miracle Hands ( Joseph Kessel )

1962 The Bridge on the River Kwai ( Pierre Boulle )

1962 Nuno, the Fishing Zone ( LN Lavolle )

1963 Moderato Cantabile ( Marguerite Duras )

1963 Tales from Limousin ( Léonce Bourliaguet )

1963 The Sleeping Mountain ( Léonce Bourliaguet )

1963 Land of the Pharaohs ( Leonard Cottrell )

1963 The Forest of Kokelunde ( Michel Rouzé )

1963 The Golden Cross ( Paul-Jacques Bonzon )

1964 Country of the Two Rivers ( Leonard Cottrell )

1964 Peoples of Africa ( CM Turnbull )

1965 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ( Lewis Carroll )

1966 The Most Beautiful Stories from the Arabian Nights

1966 The Adventures of Don Quixote (retold by J Reeves )

1966 The Ingenious Knight Don Quixote de la Mancha ( Cervantes )

1966 The Stray Ling ( Colette )

1966 I was Cicero ( Elyesa Bazna )

1966 King Babar ( Jean de Brunhoff )

1966 detective Maigret ( Simenon )

1967 Maigret and his Dead ( Simenon )

1967 The Eenspaaier ( Ester Wier )

1967 The Most Beautiful Mother Goose Tales of ( C Perrault )

1967 The ducktail ( Graham Greene )

1967 Mary Poppins in Kersieboomlaan ( PL Travers )

1967 (?) The Wizard's Cousin ( CS Lewis )

1968 The Big Book About Animal Cafe (with other translators)

1968 King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table

1968 The Children of Groenkop ( Lucy Boston )

1968 Maigret and the Long Derm ( Simenon )

1968 Bontnek. The Story of a Dove ( Dhan Gopal Mukerji )

1968 Alice through the mirror ( Lewis Carroll )

1968 The Clashing Rocks ( Ian Serraillier )

1968 The Taurus in the Maze ( Ian Serraillier )

1968 The Horn of Ivory ( Ian Serraillier )

1968 The head of the Gorgoon ( Ian Serraillier )

1968 The Turn of the Screw ( Henry James )

1969 The Happy Prince and Other Tales ( Oscar Wilde )

1969 Maigret and the Ghost ( Simenon )

1969 The booted Cat ( Charles Perrault )

1969 The Great Wave ( Pearl Buck S )

1969 The Nightingale ( Hans Christian Andersen )

1969 Richard III ( Shakespeare )

1970 The Terrorist ( Camus )

1971 Eskoriaal ( Michel de Gholderode )

1972 Ballerina ( Nada Ćurčija-Prodanovič )

1973 Jonathan Livingston Seagull ( Richard Bach )

1974 Hedda Gabler ( Henrik Ibsen )

1974 The Wind in the Willows ( Kenneth Grahame )

1975 The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet ( Shakespeare )

1976 The Seagull ( Anton Tsjechow )

1978 The Tierbrigade ( Claude Desailly )

1979 New Adventures of Tierbrigade ( Claude Desailly )

1980 The Nightingale and the Rose ( Oscar Wilde )

1981 Fuck Travel ( Kenneth Grahame )

1981 Adam of the Road ( Elizabeth Janet Gray )

1983 Small Duimpie ( Charles Perrault )

1987 The Adventures of Alice ( Lewis Carroll )

1992 Not All of Us ( Jeanne Goosen )

1993 The Accompanist ( Nina Berberova )

1994 The Little Prince ( Antoine de Saint-Exupéry )

2007 Black Butterflies - Selected Poems ( Ingrid Jonker ) (together with Antjie Krog )

Academic Publications Andre Brink's Job

1988 Dark Lightning: Literary Essays on the Work of Andre Brink (edited by Jan Senekal)

1991 The Lives of Adamastor (by Anthony J. Hassall, in International Literature in English , edited by L. Ross Pobert)

1996 Colonization, Violence, and Narration in White South African Writing: Andre Brink, Breyten Breytenbach and JM Coetzee (Rosemary Jane Jolly)