Marlene van niekerk biography of abraham james

Marlene van niekerk biography of abraham james: This thesis does not

Born November 10, , in Caledon, South Africa. Education: University of Stellenbosch, M. Home— Johannesburg, South Africa. Author, poet, and educator. University of Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch, South Africa, professor. Lecturer at the universities of Amsterdam, Zululand, Unisa, and Witwatersrand. Also author of poetry collections Sprokkelster, , and Groenstaar, ; of short story collection Die Vrou Wat Haar Verkyker Vrgeet Het, ; of the novel Agaat, ; and of plays.

Her acclaimed novel Triomf appeared in its original Afrikaans version in Upon its release in the United States , New York Times reviewer Rob Nixon commented, "American readers have finally been provided with South Africa's only world-class tragicomic novel, the kind of book that stabs at your heart while it has you rolling on the floor.

In their home in the Afrikaner suburb Triomf, built on the devastated remains of the once-vibrant Johannesburg suburb of Sophiatown, the Benade family struggles to cope with the new realities of post-Apartheid South Africa. Pop is the nominal patriarch of the family; seventy-year-old Mol is the female influence; argumentative Treppie is Pop and Mol's younger brother; and the hulking Lambert, forty years old, mentally ill, and afflicted by epilepsy, is Pop and Mol's son.

Though they are afforded protected white status, their lives are bleak, crippled by poverty, restricted by lack of education, and corrupted by incest that started when Pop, Mol, and Treppie were children and now includes Lambert—who may be either Pop's or Treppie's son; no one knows for sure.