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THE WAY OF THE WOMEN (Afrikaans: AGAAT)
Fiction (Literary Fiction) 695 pages
Little, Brown & Co Ltd - November 1, 2007
'I was immediately mesmerized by Ms. van Niekerk's novel. Its beauty matches its depth and her achievement is as brilliant as it is haunting.'
-- Toni Morrison
'Unquestionably the most important novel since Coetzee's DISGRACE…narrative creation of the highest order.' -- Patrick Denman Flanery, Times Literary Supplement
Chosen as Book of the Month by Good Housekeeping
Shortlisted for Three Percent's Best Translated Book Award, sponsored by Amazon.com, 2011.
Longlisted for the Independent Booksellers Choice Award 2011.
How do you speak when the power of speech has been taken away? When the only person listening refuses to understand? Milla, condemned to silence by a creeping paralysis, struggles to communicate with her maidservant and now nurse, Agaat. Proud, contrary, secretly affectionate, the two women, mistress and servant, are a perfect match.
Life for white farmers like Milla in the South Africa of the 1950s was full of promise - young and newly married, she would raise children and create her own farm out of a swathe of Cape mountainside. Forty years later her family has fallen apart, the country she knew is on the brink of huge change and all she has left are memories. And Agaat. But as Milla's old white world and its certainties recede, her guardian at last faces the prospect of freedom.
Dramatic, vivid and moving, this is a captivating story of love and family loyalty in apartheid South Africa. -
TRIOMF
Fiction (Literary Fiction) 528 pages
Little, Brown & Co Ltd - September 1999
‘The kind of book that stabs at your heart while it has you rolling on the floor…The Benades are history’s has-beens, but they are also one of the most outrageously entertaining families in contemporary literature. They may be sinking fast, but they still put on a hell of a performance.’ -- Rob Nixon, The New York Times Review of Books
‘Van Niekerk displays black humor, picaresque imagination and extraordinary wordplay…a tempestuous, heartbreaking, exhilarating read.’ -- Elisabeth Vincentelli, Time Out New York
Welcome to TRIOMF, a poor white township settled on the ruins of the razed black Sophiatown, now home to the four disintegrating members of the Benade family - Mol, Pop, Treppie and Lambert. As the first democratic election looms, these troubled misfits prepare for the day when the sun will shine on everyone. Or will it?
Biography
Award-winning poet, novelist and short story writer. Associate Professor in Afrikaans and Dutch literature and Creative Writing, Stellenbosch University and held the Unesco Africa Chair in Utrecht in 2007/8. Arena published her short story collection, THE WOMAN WHO FORGOT HER SPYGLASS in Holland (1998). Her novella MEMORANDUM features her haunting prose alongside paintings from the late South African realist painter Adriaan Van Zyl. (SA: Human & Rousseau 2006, both English and Afrikaans, translated by Michiel Heyns; Holland: Querido 2007; Honourable Mention, SA Sunday Times Prize 2007).
Her debut novel TRIOMF (translated by Leon de Kock) was a New York Times Notable Book, 2004, won the C.N.A Literary Award, and M-Net Prize in South Africa and the prestigious Noma Award for the best book in Africa. The film adaptation, directed by Michael Raeburn, won the Best South African Film Award at the Durban International Film Festival, 2008.
THE WAY OF THE WOMEN (AGAAT) is translated by Michiel Heyns, who won the Sol Plaatje Award for translation for this work. This extraordinary novel has received the following accolades in its Afrikaans and English editions:
Shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, 2008.
Winner of the South African Sunday Times Literary Prize 2007and the Hertzog Prize 2007, SA.
University of Johannesburg Prize, M-Net Award, W.A. Hofmeyr Award, all 2005.
Shortlisted Booksellers' Choice Award South Africa 2005 and the M-Net Literary Prize 2007.
It has also been listed in Publisher Weekly’s Top 100 Best Books of 2010 and picked as one of Booklist Editor’s Choice List for 2010.
Related news
- AGAAT shortlisted for the second St Francis College Literary Prize.
- AGAAT longlisted for the Independent Booksellers Choice Award 2011
- AGAAT a Best Translated Book Award 2011 finalist!
- AGAAT longlisted for Best Translated Book Award 2011
- AGAAT, Toni Morrison and rave US reviews
- TRIOMF opens at The National Film Theatre
- The Independent on South African Literature
- Blake Friedmann Authors Star at London Book Fair
- Toni Morrison's praise for Marlene van Niekerk’s AGAAT, as Michiel Heyns wins for its translation
- Major triumph for TRIOMF
- TRIOMF WINS BEST SA FILM AWARD
- THE WAY OF THE WOMEN longlisted for Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2008
- Blake Friedmann authors sweep SA Sunday Times Literary Awards
- Three Blake Friedmann authors on M-Net Literary Awards shortlist
- Five agency clients on SA Sunday Times Awards shortlists
- Italian auction and two-book deal for Marlene van Niekerk
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