Heyns, de Kock to Translate Etienne van Heerden Classics into English for Penguin Books
Penguin Books South Africa is delighted to announce the forthcoming publication of two of Etienne van Heerden’s recent and most significant works: In Love’s Place and Thirty Nights in Amsterdam, as well as the reissue in paperback, in brand new livery, of two of his earlier novels – Ancestral Voices and Leap Year, both of which have been unavailable in English for some time.
First published in Afrikaans as In stede van die liefde (2005), In Love’s Place has been translated by Leon de Kock. The novel won the 2005 ATKV Prize for Prose and the 2006 WA Hofmeyr Prize for Afrikaans literature. It is Van Heerden’s sixth novel and is set against a backdrop that the author knows well, moving among the rich landscape of the Cape winelands to the arid edges of the Karroo, as well as the seedier parts of Cape Town’s Atlantic seaboard. It tells the story of Christian, an internet-based art dealer, a man with secrets and a life that becomes ever more complicated.
Van Heerden’s most recent novel was the critically acclaimed 30 Nagte in Amsterdam (2008), now translated into English by Michiel Heyns. Thirty Nights in Amsterdam in Afrikaans won the 2009 M-Net Literary Award and the 2008 University of Johannesburg Creative Writing in Afrikaans prize. Henk de Melker is an assistant in the museum of a small town in the Eastern Cape. When he travels to Amsterdam to claim his inheritance of a house from his estranged Aunt Zan he confronts not only Zan’s past but begins to look differently at his own.
Acknowledged as one of South Africa’s great writers, Etienne van Heerden is widely regarded as a key literary figure in a generation of Afrikaans artists who contributed significantly to opening up the Afrikaner psyche to change. During the eighties he was a member of a group of Afrikaans writers who secretly met the then banned ANC and several exiled writers at the famous Victoria Falls Writers’ Conference held in Zimbabwe.
He has written eleven novels, which have won numerous awards, including The Hertzog Prize, the M-Net Award, the CNA Award (twice), the ATKV Prize (four times), the Rapport Prize for Prose, the Perskor Prize for Juvenile Literature, the Eugène Marais Prize, the J&B Young Achievers Award, the Klein Karoo Festival award (twice) and the WA Hofmeyr Prize for Afrikaans literature.
About the re-issued books
Ancestral Voices, the English translation of Toorberg, was first published in 1989 and has been out of print in its English edition since 2001. This book gives us a vision of the Afrikaner inheritance through the eyes of the insular Moolman family. This was Van Heerden’s first international breakthrough novel. It won all the major Afrikaans literary awards in South Africa when it appeared, and established its author as the leading novelist of his generation.
Leap Year, first published in Afrikaans as Die stoetmeester, was originally published in 1997 and this English edition has been out of print for more than a decade. It was nominated for the 1999 International Dublin Literary Award. Set against the backdrop of the Eastern Cape, in a time of great political upheaval, Van Heerden tells the story of the Butler family and the impact that their unusual breed of goats has on their lives and the members of their farming community.
From the CEO
As one of the leading publishers of literary fiction in South Africa, Penguin Books’ CEO Alison Lowry says: “We believe that Etienne will fit perfectly into our expanding and award-winning literary list. It is a wonderful opportunity to reinvigorate these classic works in their English editions and to showcase his two most recent novels. It takes us a step further along the road of publishing a broader and more representative spectrum of South African writers.”
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