Penguin Books is delighted to announce a new novel from the pen of Mark Behr
When Michiel Steyn returns to the family farmstead in South Africa for his mother’s funeral, he has spent close to half his lifetime abroad.
But even after fifteen years absence, neither Michiel nor those he left behind have truly come to terms with his terrible flight from the farm they called Paradise. As Michiel submits himself to the rituals of mourning and remembrance in the small town and on the land where he became a man, all that has lain undisturbed for years is brought to light.
A father’s implacable fury and a brother’s violent death, the loss of a child, the betrayal of love and the ugly memory of the dying days of apartheid all come between the prodigal and forgiveness. Michiel finds that he must confront not only his grief for his mother’s passing but the painful truth of his own transgressions.
Elegiac and chilling, poignant and profoundly thoughtful, Kings of the Water is at once a lament both personal and political, and a meditation on the potency of reconciliation.
About the author
Mark Behr is a Tanzanian-born writer who grew up in South Africa. His first published novel, The Smell of Apples (1995), appeared first in Afrikaans in 1993 (Die Reuk van Appels). The book garnered significant recognition in the form of the Eugène Marais Prize, the M-Net Award, the CNA Literary Debut Award and The Art Seidenbaum Award from the Los Angeles Times. The Smell of Apples has been adapted for the screen for release in the UK in 2011. Kfir Yefet is credited with the screenplay; actors Gillian Anderson and Julian McMahon are given as the leads.
Behr’s second novel, Embrace (2000) was short-listed for The Sunday Times Fiction Prize and the Encore Award in the United Kingdom.
Behr has also written short stories and essays and is currently the Associate Professor of World Literature and Fiction Writing at the College of Santa Fe in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His work is extensively translated and has received awards from the Los Angeles Times, the British Society of Authors and the South African Academy of Sciences and the Arts. He travels regularly between the USA and South Africa.
Book details
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