The Children's Day
Autor Michiel Heyns A. L. Kennedyen Limba Engleză Paperback – 31 iul 2009
The Children's Day follows the life of Simon, a boy living in a free-state village during the apartheid years of the 1960s. Through a series of finely drawn and illuminating episodes, the novel captures the essence of what it was like to grow up in a society fraught with strange and often violent contradictions of class, race, gender, and language. Adolescence, in all its angst and confusion, is explored through the acute eyes of Simon, who is torn between scorn for his surroundings and a desire to belong. It is through the lives of the novel’s poignant, vulnerable, and sometimes eccentric characters — Mr. de Wet, with his disconcerting eyes; chinless Betty; Miss Rheeder with her ever-present red shoes; Trevor, with his blonde bangs and pink shirt — that Simon comes to understand what the complexity of love can mean.
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9780980243666
ISBN-10: 0980243661
Pagini: 244
Dimensiuni: 124 x 193 x 20 mm
Greutate: 0.25 kg
Editura: Tin House Books
ISBN-10: 0980243661
Pagini: 244
Dimensiuni: 124 x 193 x 20 mm
Greutate: 0.25 kg
Editura: Tin House Books
Recenzii
“The Children’s Day is a deceptively delicate book carefully constructed, both subtly funny and melancholy. It teases apart the layers of memory and winds its young protagonist, deeper and deeper into his short but intense past and the aching dilemmas of his present. But under the novel’s surface, Heyns sustains a tangible, steely fury – a real sense of absolute violence, abuse, loss and deep wrong. In Simon’s half-spoken relationship with the outcast Fanie we are offered a final sense of dangerous tenderness, potential self-knowledge and painful change. This is an important, lovely and thoughtful book."
—A.L.Kennedy, Bookforum
"Successfully unveils the moral hypocrisy of the era..." —Publishers Weekly, 6/29/09
"...fascinating...The result of his insistent moralism is a complex, destructive, angst-inspiring denouement that neatly captures, metaphorically, the corruptions, confusion and hypocrisy of the surrounding society. Mr. Heyns's novel deserves a wide readership."—Martin Rubin, The Wall Street Journal
"...rich language...splendid characters...Heyns' story goes beyond Simon's coming-of-age and broaches something much bigger: society's own struggles with coming-of-age." —Amy Wallen, The Los Angeles Times
“In a political and social climate drawn in hard lines, confusion feels oddly refreshing. It’s what makes The Children's Day a deeper read than more polemical takes on apartheid. Heyns is no less condemning of the inherent violence and hypocrisy of the arrangement, but Simon’s adolescent consciousness lends a more human perspective.”—Time Out Chicago
"Eminently readable debut novel...reminiscent in structure and tone to Vikas Swarup's Q&A (the inspiration behind 'Slumdog Millionaire')...At times funny, surprising, and disturbing..." —Tiffany Lee-Youngren, San Diego Union Tribune
Notă biografică
Michiel Heyns grew up all over South Africa – Thaba Nchu, Kimberley, Grahamstown, Cape Town - and was educated at the Universities of Stellenbosch and Cambridge. For much of his adult life he was an academic, lecturing in English at the University of Stellenbosch, but after publication of his first novel, The Children’s Day, he took to writing full-time, publishing The Reluctant Passenger in 2003 and The Typewriter’s Tale in 2005. His latest novel, Bodies Politic, was recently published by Jonathan Ball. In 2006 he translated two works by Marlene van Niekerk, Agaat and Memorandum. Agaat was awarded the Sunday Times Fiction Prize for 2006; published as The Way of the Women in the UK in November 2007, it was short-listed for the Independent Foerign Fiction Prize. He has recently translated Equatoria by Tom Dreyer, to be published by Aflame Books (UK) in 2008. He reviews regularly for the Sunday Independent, for which he was awarded the English Academy's Pringle Prize for Reviewing for 2006.
A.L. Kennedy is one of the most distinguished and acclaimed writers of her generation. She is the author of four collections of stories, most recently Indelible Acts, and four novels, including Paradise and Day, winner of the 2008 Costa Book Prize. She is the winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the Somerset Maugham Award and was chosen as one of the twenty Best of Young British Novelists in 1993 and again in 2003. Her work of non-fiction, On Bullfighting, is already regarded as a modern classic. She has been commissioned to write a play for the Royal Shakespeare Company and has embarked on a successful career in stand-up comedy.
A.L. Kennedy is one of the most distinguished and acclaimed writers of her generation. She is the author of four collections of stories, most recently Indelible Acts, and four novels, including Paradise and Day, winner of the 2008 Costa Book Prize. She is the winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the Somerset Maugham Award and was chosen as one of the twenty Best of Young British Novelists in 1993 and again in 2003. Her work of non-fiction, On Bullfighting, is already regarded as a modern classic. She has been commissioned to write a play for the Royal Shakespeare Company and has embarked on a successful career in stand-up comedy.