THE LAST TIME Silas Ali encountered the lieutenant, Silas was locked in the back of a police van and the lieutenant was viciously raping Lydia, Silas’s wife. But a chance encounter twenty years later brings crimes from the past crashing into the present, shattering the fragile shell of normalcy that defines the Alis’ family life. Bitter Fruit is the story of Silas, Lydia and their circle of friends and family living in post-apartheid South Africa. It is also the story of their son Mikey, a child of “the new South Africa,” a young man whose own identity crisis, sexual adventuring and murderous search for his biological father are about to explode.With Bitter Fruit, Achmat Dangor ventures into territory no other South African writer has entered. The bitter fruits of apartheidrape, incest, murderare revealed in a riveting narrative that addresses the dynamic politics of race, history and the new elite in the context of contemporary times. But the novel is also a universal portrait of a modern family struggling to live in a dysfunctional society. By turns harrowing, erotic and fearlessly satirical, Bitter Fruit confirms the literary reputation of a gifted novelist.

Bitter Fruit

Literature & Fiction

Dangor, Achmat

Literary

HarperCollins, Publishers

Bitter Fruit is the story of Silas Ali, his wife, Lydia, andtheir friends and family in postapartheid South Africa as they try to movebeyond a past that is both painful and unresolved. It is also the story of theirson, Mikey, a young man whose own identity crisis, sexual adventuring and searchfor his biological father are about to explode.
Achmat Dangor ventures into territory no other South Africanwriter has entered. The bitter fruits of apartheid―rape, incest, murder―arerevealed in a riveting, brilliant portrait of a modern family struggling to livein a dysfunctional society.

Harper-perennial

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.

Kafka's Curse: A Novel

British & Irish

Pantheon

"Dangor writes lyrical...beautiful prose. Kafka's Curse is....full of cries that go on ringing in the head." --The New York Times Book Review From the award-winning South African poet Achmat Dangor, an extraordinary American debut and an imaginative reinterpretation of an old Arabic fairy tale unfolds in five magical narratives set in post-apartheid South Africa. Kafka's Curse is the story of Oscar Kahn (born Omar Khan), a "colored" Muslim architect passing as a Jewish man, married to a white woman, who eventually experiences a mysterious physical transformation, the likes of which no one can explain. As his brother Malik, a politician firmly rooted in Islam, tries to come to terms with his brother's betrayal, he abandons both his principles and his family when he falls in love with Amina, Omar's beautiful psychotherapist. With the hauntingly lyrical and rich allegory of Kafka's Curse, Achmat Dangor commands a position at the forefront of contemporary literature.

Vintage

Kafka's curse: A novella & three other stories

Kwela Books

This novel provides insight into the intricacies of a changing South Africa at the end of the 1990s. Silas Ali, a former political activist, now a middle-aged civil servant working on the final Truth and Reconciliation Commission report, is shopping in the Killarney Mall in Johannesburg when he bumps into a ghost from his past-Lieutenant François du Boise, a retired security policeman. This chance encounter brings back a memory that Silas and his wife Lydia have been avoiding for 20 years. The past erupts into the present, cracking off the shell of normalcy that encloses their family life. This story of Silas, Lydia, and their son Mikey, a university student with a curious mind and a calculating will, provides an understanding of the politics of race, the brittle surface of urban life in postapartheid South Africa, and the deeper, more disturbing historical currents that run beneath it.

Contemporary

Macmillan Co. of Australia

With the publication of Kafka's Curse, Achmat Dangor established himself as an utterly singular voice in South African fiction. His new novel, a finalist for the Man Booker Prize and the IMPAC-Dublin Literary Award, is a clear-eyed, witty, yet deeply serious look at South Africa's political history and its damaging legacy in the lives of those who live there. The last time Silas Ali encountered Lieutenant Du Boise, Silas was locked in the back of a police van and the lieutenant was conducting a vicious assault on Silas's wife, Lydia, in revenge for her husband's participation in Nelson Mandela's African National Congress. When Silas sees Du Boise by chance twenty years later, as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is about to deliver its report, crimes from the past erupt into the present, splintering the Alis' fragile peace. Meanwhile Silas and Lydia's son, Mikey, a thoroughly contemporary young hip-hop lothario, contends in unforeseen ways with his parents' pasts. A harrowing story of a brittle family on the crossroads of history and a fearless skewering of the pieties of revolutionary movements, Bitter Fruit is a cautionary tale of how we do, or do not, address the past's deepest wounds.

Bitter Fruit: A Novel

Black Cat.

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Books by Dangor, Achmat

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Dangor, Achmat. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Bitter Fruit

Bitter Fruit

Kafka's Curse: A Novel

Kafka's Curse: A Novel

Kafka's curse: A novella & three other stories

Bitter Fruit

Bitter Fruit

Bitter Fruit: A Novel