Additional information
by Andre Brink (Author)
Shortlisted for the 1976 Booker Prize
The year is 1749, when the Boers ruled South Africa. And so it has come to his Baas's final command to his Hottentot slave Adam, to flog his mother, because she refuses to prune the master's vineyard in order to attend her own beloved mother's funeral. And when he refuses to do so, and his Baas smashes his face with a piece of wood, Adam turns on him, and beats him almost to death. Then he flees to South Africa's veld. There he comes to the rescue of Elizabeth, a white woman, and the only person to survive her husband's expedition in the vast South African interior. Alone and terrified, she pleads with the runaway slave to bring her back to the Cape and her home. Adam agrees because he believes by rescuing Elizabeth, he will be awarded his own freedom.
This, then is the stunning story of their trek together, how they find in each other their mutual need and humanity, and finally how their days together turn into an unforgettable, tender love story.
Back Jacket
&?Brink writes feelingly of South Africa-the land, the black, the white, the terrible beauty and tragedy that lies therein.&? -Publishers Weekly&
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Shortlisted for the Booker Prize?&
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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.&
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&?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&
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&?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&
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&?Andr?? 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&
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&?The subject is important and the novelistic achievement impressive.&?&
-Library Journal&
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&?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&
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&?An Instant in the Wind stands with the best of Alan Paton.&?&
-Cleveland Plain Dealer&
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Andr?? 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 anoutspoken recorder of South Africa&'s turbulent history, from the days of apartheid to the present.&
Author Biography
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.
