A Land Apart: A Contemporary South African Reader

André Brink was born on May 29, 1935 in Vrede, South Africa. He studied English and Afrikaans at the University in Potchefstroom and comparative literature in Paris. He was a South African writer and educator. He became a part of a group of writers known as Die Sestigers upon returning to South Africa in the 1960s. The group aimed to broaden show more Afrikaner fiction by writing about sexual and moral matters and the failings of the traditional political system. His books included Rumors of Rain, Looking on Darkness, A Dry White Season, and States of Emergency. Some of his books were banned in South Africa. He became a professor of Afrikaans and Dutch literature at Rhodes University and professor of English at the University of Cape Town. He has received the 1980 Martin Luther King Prize, the 1980 French Prix Medicis Etranger, and the 1982 Chevalier of the Legion d'Honneur. He was shortlisted for the Booker Prize twice and nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature on several occasions. He died on February 6, 2015 at the age of 79. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

J.M. Coetzee's full name is John Michael Coetzee. Born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1940, Coetzee is a writer and critic who uses the political situation in his homeland as a backdrop for many of his novels. Coetzee published his first work of fiction, Dusklands, in 1974. Another book, Boyhood, loosely chronicles an unhappy time in Coetzee's show more childhood when his family moved from Cape Town to the more remote and unenlightened city of Worcester. Other Coetzee novels are In the Heart of the Country and Waiting for the Barbarians. Coetzee's critical works include White Writing and Giving Offense: Essays on Censorship. Coetzee is a two-time recipient of the Booker Prize and in 2003, he won the Nobel Literature Award. (Bowker Author Biography) J. M. Coetzee's books include "Boyhood", "Dusklands", "In the Heart of the Country", "Waiting for the Barbarians", "Life & Times of Michael K", "Foe", & "The Master of Petersburg". A professor of general literature at the University of Cape Town, Coetzee has won many literary awards, including the CNA Prize (South Africa's premier literary award), the Booker Prize (twice), the Prix Etranger Femina, the Jerusalem Prize, the Lannan Literary Award, & The Irish Times International Fiction Prize. (Publisher Provided) show less