Mating Birds: A Novel - Softcover

Nkosi, Lewis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312522959 ISBN 13: 9780312522957

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1986

Synopsis

From a prison cell, an ironic, supremely rational young Black man tells the story of his all-consuming obsession with a white girl with whom he has been silently communicating across a segregated beach

About this title

Synopsis:

The novel tells the story, in the first person, of a young black male ex-student's obsession with a young English woman, Veronica Slater, whom he encounters on the segregated Durban beachfront. It is the heyday of apartheid. Although not a word is exchanged, a strong erotic bond develops between the two of them, culminating in what is later seen as a rape and for which the narrator gets the death sentence. In an absolute tour de force the narrator, only ever referred to as Mr Sibiya, waiting to be executed, writes down his story - reconstructing bit by bit not only his own and a brief history of his family, but also his obsession with the white girl, the court proceedings, and his encounters with Dr Dufre, a Swiss criminologist who has been granted permission of compile a dossier of the case. One of the most remarkable things about the novel is the narrator's ability to be objective, to view himself and the series of events almost dispassionately.

About the Author:

Lewis Nkosi is the author of Home and Exile, The Transplanted Heart, and Underground People. He has written for The New York Review of Books.

About this edition

• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Publication date: 1986
• ISBN 10: 0312522959
• ISBN 13: 9780312522957
• Binding: Paperback