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“In a dizzying shift of perspective, Rune suddenly feels he has become the leper: it’s Rune who looks out through scarred, opaque corneas; Rune who sees cloudy, smeared images with no edges; Rune who discerns light and shadow but remembers what it was like to have moonlight fall on his face; those are Rune’s misshapen, ulcerated feet wrapped in bloodied gunnysack that is secured with coir rope . . . The moment passes. He has no explanation for what just happened, the sense of being momentarily embodied in another.”
― The Covenant of Water
― The Covenant of Water
“After a Bible lesson about Adam and Eve, a thirteen-year-old boy asked his father, “Tell me, Father, how did I get born?” “Well,” the father replied, “the stork plucked you out of the ocean, set you down in Mother’s bed and bit her in the leg, hard. It bled so much she had to stay in bed for a week.” Not fully satisfied, the boy went to his mother. “Tell me, Mother,” he asked, “how did you get born and how did I get born?” His mother told him the very same story. Finally, hoping to hear the fine points, he went to his grandfather. “Tell me, Grandfather,” he said, “how did you get born and how did your daughter get born?” And for the third time he was told exactly the same story. That night he wrote in his diary: “After careful inquiry, I must conclude that there has been no sexual intercourse in our family for the last three generations!”
― Anne Frank: The Diary Of A Young Girl: The Definitive Edition
― Anne Frank: The Diary Of A Young Girl: The Definitive Edition
“She walks down the hall and climbs into her hammock, giving it a swing as she leaves the ground. Moments before sleep are when she feels most alive, leaping across fragments of the day, bringing each moment into the bed with her like a child with schoolbooks and pencils. The day seems to have no order until these times, which are like a ledger for her, her body full of stories and situations. Caravaggio has for instance given her something. His motive, a drama, and a stolen image.”
― The English Patient
― The English Patient
“don’t believe the war is simply the work of politicians and capitalists. Oh no, the common man is every bit as guilty; otherwise, people and nations would have re- belled long ago! There’s a destructive urge in people, the urge to rage, murder and kill. And until all of humanity, without exception, undergoes a metamorphosis, wars will continue to be waged, and everything that has been carefully built up, cultivated and grown will be cut down and destroyed, only to start allover again!”
― The Diary of a Young Girl
― The Diary of a Young Girl
“It is strange but true that human life depends on something as fleeting and fragile as shade. That is why the tree, which bestows it, is something greater than just a tree—it is life itself. If lightning strikes its crown and the mango goes up in flames, people here will have nowhere to find shelter from the sun, or to assemble. Without the means to assemble, they will be unable to make any decision, reach any resolution. But above all they will be unable to recount their history, which exists only in the process of being retold during evening gatherings beneath the tree. Because of this they will quickly lose their knowledge about their yesterday, will lose their memory of it. They will become people without history, meaning—they will be nobody. They will lose that which united them, will disperse, each one going off in a separate direction, alone. But solitude is impossible in Africa; a solitary man will not survive a single day, is automatically condemned to death. That is why if a thunderbolt shatters the tree, the people who lived in its shade will also perish. And so it is said: Man cannot survive longer than his shadow.”
― The Shadow of the Sun: My African Life
― The Shadow of the Sun: My African Life
Sylvie Botha’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Sylvie Botha’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
1 book
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16 friends
0 books
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3 friends
1 book
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17 friends
0 books
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17 friends
1 book
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6 friends
1,484 books
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10 friends
64 books
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26 friends
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