Bøger af Zoe Wicomb

"A novel that tells the story of an author struggling to write a biography of long-forgotten Scottish poet Thomas Pringle, whose only legacy is in South Africa where he is dubbed the 'Father of South African Poetry.'"--

The appearance of Zoe Wicomb's first set of short stories, "You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town," precipitated the founding of a fan club that has come to include Toni Morrison, J.M. Coetzee, Bharati Mukherjee, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and writers at the "New York Times," the "London Times," the Wall Street Journal, the New Yorker, and the Christian Science Monitor. Now, after two novels, Wicomb returns to the genre that first brought her international acclaim. Set mostly in Cape Town and Glasgow, Wicomb's new collection of short stories straddles dual worlds. An array of characters drawn with extraordinary acuity inhabits a complexly interconnected, twenty-first-century universe. The fourteen stories in this collection explore a range of human relationships: marriage, friendship, family ties, and relations with those who serve us. Wicomb's fluid, shifting technique questions conventional certainties and makes for exhilarating reading, full of ironic twists, ambiguities, and moments of startling insight. Long awaited, "The One That Got Away" showcases this established, award-winning author at the height of her powers.

A New York Times Top Historical Fiction Pick of 2020An inventive and genre-bending new novel from a master of the form, exploring race, the legacy of past exploitation and present-day authorship. Who should be remembered, and who should tell their story? .

A South African academic returns to her homeland in this novel by the award-winning author of You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town';an extraordinary writer' (Toni Morrison). Winner of the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize, Zo Wicomb is an essential voice of the South African diaspora, hailed by fellow writerssuch as Toni Morrison and J. M. Coetzee, among othersand by reviewers as ';a writer of rare brilliance' (The Scotsman). In October, Wicomb tells the story of Mercia Murray, a South African woman of color in the midst of a difficult homecoming. Abandoned by her partner in Scotland, where she has been living for twenty-six years, Mercia returns to South Africa to find her family overwhelmed by alcoholism and buried secrets. Poised between her new life in Scotland and her South African roots, Mercia recollects the past and assesses the present with a keen sense of irony.October is a stark and utterly compelling novel about the contemporary experience of a woman caught between cultures, adrift in middle age with her memories and an uncertain future.

';In her ambitious third novel, Wicomb explores South Africa's history through a woman's attempt to answer questions surrounding her past' (The New Yorker). Set in a beautifully rendered 1990s Cape Town, Windham Campbell Prize winner Zo Wicomb's celebrated novel revolves around Marion Campbell, who runs a travel agency but hates traveling, and who, in post-apartheid society, must negotiate the complexities of a knotty relationship with Brenda, her first black employee. As Alison McCulloch noted in the New York Times, ';Wicomb deftly explores the ghastly soup of racism in all its unglorydenial, tradition, habit, stupidity, fearand manages to do so without moralizing or becoming formulaic.' Caught in the narrow world of private interests and self-advancement, Marion eschews national politics until the Truth and Reconciliation Commission throws up information that brings into question not only her family's past but her identity and her rightful place in contemporary South African society. ';Stylistically nuanced and psychologically astute,' Playing in the Light is as powerful in its depiction of Marion's personal journey as it is in its depiction of South Africa's bizarre, brutal history (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). ';Post-apartheid South Africa is indeed a new world... With this novel, Wicomb proves a keen guide.' The New York Times ';Delectable... Wicomb's prose is as delightful and satisfying in its culmination as watching the sun set over the Atlantic Ocean.' The Christian Science Monitor ';[A] thoughtful, poetic novel.' The Times (London)

The South African novel of identity that "deserves a wide audience on a par with Nadine Gordimer."