Andre Brink - an appreciation

When I was living in England in the 1970's and 80's, there were two major reactions to my being a white South African:
1) Taxi-drivers and the white middle- and owning- classes would suddenly feel free to express racist ideas and opinions, assuming that I would be in agreement with them or
2) I was ostracized by the social activists and left-wingers whose company I sought in the Women's Movement and in the other organisations I joined. I didn't always realize this. People would just turn away from me when they heard my accent. It wasn't violent - just isolating. And of-course, it led to feelings of self-hate and guilt. And I blamed and despised the Afrikaners who had devised apartheid and the racism it symbolized.

I don't know when I first discovered the books of Andre Brink - it was probably in the late 70's. Maybe it was when the English translations were published? They were a revelation. Here was a terrific writer - a white Afrikaner - writing great stories about the tense world I knew - full of the racial complexities with which I was familiar. I felt understood, validated, intrigued and informed by them. They made an enormous difference to how I perceived myself and other white South Africans. He was writing in very difficult circumstances but he did it anyway. Reading his books: Rumours of Rain, Looking on Darkness, A Dry White Season and An Instant in the Wind - gave me courage. I could overcome the guilt, I could tackle the racism that I carried, I could maybe even love myself. He was a white South African of whom I was immensely proud and I recommended his books to anyone who showed an interest beyond the usual stereotyping. Ricky Sherover-Marcuse, from California, who in the early 80's had begun to run workshops for white people on Unlearning Racism, was one such person.

Andre Brink died last Friday at the age of 79. The obituaries and articles this week are very matter of fact - although starting to improve: for instance, click on the link to see one in the UK Guardian. He was considered a great writer and was highly honored and decorated. Somehow no-one was writing why. Novels engage our emotions - he did that in so many different ways exposing the pain inherent in the relationships we had and still have in our country, and he was especially great at revealing and recreating the danger and tensions that existed when ordinary human behaviour was forbidden and might be discovered and punished.

I know I am not alone in thanking him for what he gave to the world. Hamba Kahle Andre Brink!