SADNESS IN THE HOUSE OF LOVE: Farouk Asvat The blossoming love between Siddique and Wasiela in the midst of an uprising against the cruel regime is set against the bleakness and the beauty of the peninsula - the myriad characters reacting with humour and courage to the turmoil surrounding them. Against the backdrop of the ever-present mountain and the persistent south-easter, the novel is a portrait of a cosmopolitan city isolated from the world, of a happy-go-lucky community caught up in the throes of a revolt against oppression, of an extended family responding to the new challenges facing them, of the slowly developing love between the two protagonists getting entangled in the maelstrom - with devastating consequences. ] SADNESS IN THE HOUSE OF LOVE contents: 1. The Family Of Many Children In The Motherless Mother City (summer) 2. Days And Nights Full Of Fire And Love (autumn) 3. Sadness In The House Of Love (winter) 4. A Whirlwind Of Ashes (spring?) ] SADNESS IN THE HOUSE OF LOVE THE FAMILY OF MANY CHILDREN IN THE MOTHERLESS MOTHER CITY "They chase shadows," Fahdila said with measured contempt. Only Siddique, dreaming of the treacherous Atlantic eyes of Wasiela - the fairest virgin of the Cape - heard her. He looked at Fahdila's alabaster features across the supper table ... and said nothing. Her voice reverberated in his skull, flying among the colourful discord of budgies flying around in the rarefied air of the lounge, hovering about in the excited atmosphere of cousins and aunts gathered for the evening. From then on boisterous laughter took over, a carnival of delights in the festive atmosphere: ... ] FAROUK ASVAT was banned by the South African regime between 1973 and 1978; and nominated an Amnesty International "Prisoner of Conscience." He has received numerous death threats for his views and his writings. He won the Vita Literary Award for his anthology, A Celebration of Flames. He was awarded the Fulbright Scholarship to the University of California at Berkeley, and the EOC Scholarship to the Vrije Universiteit in the Netherlands. He was awarded the Kwanzaa Honors Certificate by the Africa Network in the United States; and his poem was selected to represent South Africa in the International Portland Review. His writings have been published in the United States, Canada, Brazil, Turkey, Switzerland, Netherlands, France, Germany, England & South Africa; and been translated into French, Dutch, Portuguese and Turkish. This is the first of a quartet of novels to be published.