Miskien nooit

by André Brink

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

André Philippus Brink was a South African novelist. He wrote in Afrikaans and English and was until his retirement a Professor of English Literature at the University of Cape Town.

In the 1960s, he and Breyten Breytenbach were key figures in the Afrikaans literary movement known as Die Sestigers ("The Sixty-ers"). These writers sought to use Afrikaans as a language to speak against the apartheid government, and also to bring into Afrikaans literature the influence of contemporary English and French trends. His novel Kennis van die aand (1973) was the first Afrikaans book to be banned by the South African government.

Brink's early novels were often concerned with the apartheid policy. His final works engaged new issues raised by life in postapartheid South Africa.

Reviews

[Tiaan La Grange · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was, in all honesty, my first Brink novel. I don't think it will be my last, but it felt like it was enough to tell me what kind of writer Brink was (but his lasting literary reputation naturally coloured my reading).

"Miskien Nooit" is lyrical in the way I like literary novels to be. It's difficult, however, to make sense of the narrator, main character, and author in this piece, which I believe is autofiction, but that might be the point. The novel is very aimless (in the way that The Catcher in the Rye is), yet beautifully written and filled with stretches of prose or dialogue that really stand out. The setting on the Left Bank of Paris reminds me of how he approached writing the City of Love in his short story "Paris by Night" and how Baldwin approaches it in "Giovanni's Room". In a way much like Baldwin's, this is a novel about yearning and obsession and finding escape from one's own anxieties and internal struggles in another person.

Brink uses an interesting device to move the narrative along. His narrator describes the scenes we witness the characters in as if he were walking you through how he'd direct the film adaptation of his own biopic — embellishments and creative licence included. I really enjoyed reading his work and somewhat still stand by my naive claim that Brink is my favourite Sestiger.