‘André Brink’

The legendary South African writer André Brink is coming to BOZAR for a unique encounter. Brink, who turns eighty this year, is exceptionally in Belgium to receive an award doctorate honoris causa from the Université catholique de Louvain. Ludo Teeuwen - South Africa specialist and literary critic for De Standaard - will join Brink for a discussion about his life and work.

André Brink was born in 1935 and is one of South Africa's most distinguished writers. He began writing in Afrikaans, but when censored by the South African government he started writing in English as well and was published overseas. He remains a key figure in the modernisation of the Afrikaans language novel. His book, A Dry White Season (1979), was made into a film starring Marlon Brando, while An Instant in the Wind (1976), the story of a relationship between a white woman and a black man, and Rumours of Rain (1978) were both shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction.  Devil's Valley (1998) explores the life of a community hidden away from the rest of the world, and The Other Side of Silence (2002), set in colonial Africa in the early twentieth century, won a Commonwealth Writers regional award for Best Book in 2003. Brink has also written a collection of essays on literature and politics, Reinventing a Continent (1996), which is prefaced by Nelson Mandela. His most recent novel, Philida, tells the story of a female slave, and her fierce determination to survive and be free. It was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2013. André Brink has been made a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters and was awarded the Legion of Honour by the French government. 

The encounter will be followed by a signing session.