Brink, Andre

New York. 1982. Morrow. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. 0688011314. 525 pages. hardcover. Cover: Honi Werner. keywords: Literature South Africa Afrikaans. FROM THE PUBLISHER - A Chain of Voices opens with a historical document, the charges brought against a group of South African slaves in 1825 in the aftermath of a revolt during which a handful of whites were murdered. It closes with the verdict that was handed down. The book itself is a fictional, entirely imagined re-creation of the events and entanglement of lives that caused the rebellion and killings. The leader of the insurrection is the slave called Galant, whose father may or may not have been white and whose master and victim, Nicolaas van der Merwe, may or may not have been his half-brother. The action takes place on a remote Afrikaaner farmstead, seven days by wagon from Cape Town. The voices that tell the story, each in the first person, belong to some two dozen characters, black and white, whose passions fuel the flames. With A Chain of Voices, AndrE Brink proves beyond doubt that he is a novelist of world stature. In the manner of Greek tragedy, his plot teems with family secrets, murder, revenge and love; yet, characteristically, his book is also an outcry against the injustices that have cursed all of South African society. The people of whom he writes are neither villains nor heroes, merely men and women trapped by custom and history and by their own weaknesses and ambitions. His artistry transforms a political statement into a compelling literary achievement. inventory #1601 ISBN: 0688011314.