A schoolboy playing truant bumps into his revered father coming out of the cinema with a woman. An ordinary mishap; but the father is no ordinary man, and the family, threatened by the affair, is no ordinary family. This is a passionate story; love between a man and two women, between father and son, and something even more demanding - a love of freedom. It is a highly intimate drama of personal conflict and public struggle in the evolutionary events that, at great cost to people like these, have brought about change in ...
Read More
A schoolboy playing truant bumps into his revered father coming out of the cinema with a woman. An ordinary mishap; but the father is no ordinary man, and the family, threatened by the affair, is no ordinary family. This is a passionate story; love between a man and two women, between father and son, and something even more demanding - a love of freedom. It is a highly intimate drama of personal conflict and public struggle in the evolutionary events that, at great cost to people like these, have brought about change in South Africa.
Read Less
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Near Fine in Near Fine jacket. Dustwrapper, pp.277. Appears fine in wrapper but there is a small inkstain on top edge of cover and to inside of wrapper, only just visible on wrapper exterior by holding book close for inspection. Near fine in wrapper. Size: 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Used: Acceptable. Hardback with D/J in very good condition. Highly praised as a literate goad to South Africa's conscience under apartheid, Gordimer (A Sport of Nature) here delivers her most perceptive and powerful novel in years. The story of a man's evolution as a political activist and the toll it takes on his family and on him, it is also a picture of a marriage and of an extramarital affair, set against a backdrop of daily life in segregated South Africa, even as the winds of change begin to blow. An exemplary husband and father, a pillar of rectitude in the black community, Sonny is dismissed from his teaching job after he leads a political protest. Imprisoned, on his release he becomes a leader in the revolutionary underground; at the same time he is swept into an affair with a white woman, a worker in a human rights organization. The intertwined events that lead to the breakup of Sonny's family and the tragic end of his high hopes and ideals are partially narrated by his teenage son Will, bitter and cynical over his father's marital betrayal. The novel is eloquent in its understated prose and anguished understanding of moral complexities in a land where blacks keep "rags...on their persons as protection against tear-gas as white people carry credit cards." Tightly focused and controlled, expertly plotted, the narrative is replete with ironies; the tension increases almost invisibly, until the unexpected, jolting denouement. In the end, Will resolves to record "what it really was like to live a life determined by the struggle to be free." Which is exactly what this book does, honestly and memorably.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
8vo. Original gilt lettered black cloth (Fine), dustwrapper (near Fine in protective cover, price obscured with black pen mark). Pp. 194 (no inscriptions).
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
PLEASE NOTE, WE DO NOT SHIP TO DENMARK. New Book. Shipped from UK in 4 to 14 days. Established seller since 2000. Please note we cannot offer an expedited shipping service from the UK.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Fair. Acceptable condition only-readable but not pretty. This book is in stock now, in our UK premises. Photos of our books are available on request (the pictures you see on Alibris are NOT our own).
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Dispatched, from the UK, within 48 hours of ordering. Though second-hand, the book is still in very good shape. Minimal signs of usage may include very minor creasing on the cover or on the spine.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Dispatched, from the UK, within 48 hours of ordering. This book is in good condition but will show signs of previous ownership. Please expect some creasing to the spine and/or minor damage to the cover. Aged book. Tanned pages and age spots, however, this will not interfere with reading.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Dispatched, from the UK, within 48 hours of ordering. Though second-hand, the book is still in very good shape. Minimal signs of usage may include very minor creasing on the cover or on the spine.