Kafka's Curse: A Novella & Three Other Stories - Softcover

Dangor, Achmat

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0795700547 ISBN 13: 9780795700545

Publisher: Kwela Books, 1997

Synopsis

With the publication in South Africa of Kafka's Curse, the prize-winning poet Achmat Dangor joined the ranks of first-rate literary writers--Gordimer, Brink, Breytenbach, and Coetzee among them--to come out of South Africa.        

Brilliantly conceived and powerfully evoked, Kafka's Curse is a modern reinterpretation of the Arabic legend of the gardener who loves a princess and, for his transgression, is transformed into a tree. Reset in South Africa as apartheid was coming undone, this is the story of the Khan family, who are both "colored" and Muslim.  When Oscar Khan, a budding architect, dares to pursue a woman outside his race and to change his religious identity, he commits a sin and must be punished. His unforgiving brother, a post-apartheid politician, tries to come to terms with Oscar's apostasy but will himself betray both his principles and his family when he falls in love with Amina, a beautiful and spirited psychotherapist.

Kafka's Curse is both part of the tradition of politically charged South African fiction and a bold departure that makes us see that nation as we never have before. Imbued with a timely resonance even as it is narrated with the lyric and imagistic intensity of magic realism, it announces the arrival of Achmat Dangor in the forefront of contemporary literary novelists.

About this edition

• Publisher: Kwela Books
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0795700547
• ISBN 13: 9780795700545
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 194