Alert! NB Publishers is reporting that Karel Schoeman’s classic novel, Hierdie lewe, has won France’s “Best Foreign Book” prize, the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger.
The novel was published in France by Phébus as Cette vie; it appeared on French bookshelves in January.
First published in 1995, it won the Herzog Prize for prose. It was republished in a “classics” edition by Human & Rousseau in 2003. Here’s the blurb:
Hierdie lewe is a beautifully written, evocative account of the life of a woman who lived in the Roggeveld in the latter part of the nineteenth century.
On her deathbed she recalls a life of isolation and loneliness, her role that of a witness. Witness to the events in her family – the effect of her mother’s increasingly overbearing behaviour; the relationship between her two brothers and the young woman they both loved.
The woman’s hesitant, faltering reminiscing is an attempt to understand the injustices (e.g. the eviction of “coloureds” from land they had occupied for generations), and to unravel the secrets behind the events which led to the death of one of her brothers. The novel is a delicate and subtle web of emotions, a narrative of almost hypnotic power which draws the reader into “this life”.
The Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger is 61 years old this year (I think), but not much else is forthcoming on it online – such as who gives it and whether it’s accompanied by a cash prize. Readers, if you’ve got the skinny, please augment this post with your information in the comments section below.
Meanwhile, congrats to Schoeman!
Book details
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