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NINEVEH
Fiction (Literary Fiction) 207 pages
Umuzi / Random House SA - August 2011
'A densely layered, totally absorbing tragicomedy for our anxious time and place.'-- Ivan Vladislavic, author of DOUBLE NEGATIVE
‘A gripping, thrilling allegory of a troubled nation, NINEVEH is executed with wit, panache, precision and something that I can only call wounded love for the country the author calls her home.’ -- Neel Mukherjee
When KD is hired by the enigmatic Mr Brand to cleanse the vermin-infested Nineveh walled estate, her own boundaries start to crumble. Just as the swamp water seeps into the foundations of Nineveh, so KD's past returns - bringing with it all sorts of unexpected guests. -
HOMING
Fiction (Short Story Collection) 172 pages
Umuzi / Random House SA - July 1, 2010
Includes the 2008 Caine Prize winning story ‘Poison’ A woman risks home and husband to spend just one night in the plush hotel next door; a spoiled girl is molested by monkeys in a darkened petshop; a young man’s erotic frustration triggers an avalanche; and a woman runs out of petrol on the highway as Cape Town burns in a toxic cloud. In these stories, the urban landscape of Cape Town becomes a playground and an obstacle course, offering both menace and delight. Through it, like the homing pigeons in the title story, the characters find new paths home – and are themselves transformed by the journey.
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THE ROCK ALPHABET
Fiction (Literary Fiction) 191 pages
Kwela Books (SA) - January 9, 2004
An evocative novel exploring loss, memory and reclamation through the stories of Ivy and Flin, whose paths cross in Ivy’s quest for missing rock artefacts. When Flin is only a few years old, he and his older brother are discovered wandering in a remote mountain range by Beattie Faro, daughter of a renowned archaeologist. Beattie brings the children home, but the silent older boy runs away to the mountain and fatefully, Beattie follows and also disappears.
Fifteen years later Ivy works at the Faro Institute, sorting the archaeological collection. Boring work, till a lawyer arrives to announce that the Institute is closing – and to accuse Ivy of theft. Desperate to track down missing artefacts at the old Faro house, Ivy finds it deserted and she and a friend move in. But Flin has also returned to the neighbourhood and secretly watches the girls as they transform what was once his home. Haunted by his own demons, he must to build up the courage to return to the scene of his greatest loss: the mountain, and Ivy is the one who can help him...
Biography
Prize-winning author with degrees in archaeology and biology, and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Cape Town. She has worked in publishing, scriptwriting and as a creative writing teacher. The author of two novels SHARK'S EGG (SA: Kwela 2000) and THE ROCK ALPHABET (SA: Kwela 2004) and a collection of short stories, HOMING, which features the 2008 Caine Prize winning story 'Poison' and the 2010 Willesden Prize runner-up, 'Falling'. In 2007/08 she spent some time working on her new fiction on the Schloss Solitude programme in Stuttgart, Germany. Her latest novel NINEVEH is published by Random House SA’s Umuzi imprint.
'Henrietta Rose-Innes writes an admirably taut clean prose.' J M Coetzee.
‘Rose-Innes’ writing is as entertaining as it is subtle – a rare combination.’ Steven Amsterdam, author of WHAT THE FAMILY NEEDED
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