States of Emergency

by André Brink

A South African writer struggles to write about an impassioned romance while trying to understand the real-life tragedy and danger surrounding him as the personal and the political become one

Genres: South Africa, Fiction, Politics, Africa, Historical Fiction

248 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

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

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel published at the fag end of apartheid explores that particular political volcano through two thwarted relationships, one between an ANC terrorist and self-immolated woman (a story ‘received’ by the narrator), the other between an academic and a postgrad student (the narrator’s own invention). The novel opens with a subtitle ‘Notes toward a love story’, and the novel behaves like an author’s annotated manuscript, with interruptions to cite theorists and introduce imperilled friends, and ruminate on the ongoing fiction. The novel is a interesting example of an author’s predicament: trying to write a novel while the outside world is far too monstrous too ignore, when the weight of historical events is pressing down hard on the fictive impulse. That said, for the most part this novel serves up a successful portrait of two tragic relationships, far more stimulating for Brink’s curious formal approach.

[Magdelanye · Rating 5 out of 5]

So brilliant, I can't believe I never heard of this book before I stumbled upon it in the bookstore.

A novel about the difficulties in writing a novel,especially a love story,in the chaotic reality that interferes constantly with the authors focus. Interweaving tales intersect:which is the realty and what the fiction?

Happily the corrupt regime of apartheid is now defunct.

[Ari · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like André Brink's novels. Some of them are definitely excellent.

This wasn't one of the best for my liking. I just didn't like the structure. It was a bit complicated and in my mind also somewhat artificial, like writer's notes - as it was probably intented to be. Story on a story on a story. All of those being fiction, also the writer's part?

Nowadays it is hard to understand how terrible, unbearable and unfair country South Africa was when apartheit was in full action. Incomprehensible. As was also the fact that it was tolerated by other countries for such a long time. My beloved Finland doesn't get any points when it comes to so much as visible disapprovement. Let alone more. We looked the other way. It is always somebody else's responsibility to react.

The unfairness and ungrounded violence was very well unfolded also in this novel. But I think Brink has many better examples on that subject, more "normally written and structured" fiction. Here the form overruled the content - but that is only my opinion. Somebody else will probably love just that.

A different kind of love story (or stories). Worth reading anyway. All Brinks are.


Poikkeustiloja
WSOY 1988

[G · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very messy novel, and flawed in numerous ways - it's too autobiographical; the plot sprawls all over the place; it gets super florid at times. But it's one of the books that I read over and over and think about a lot; Brink's commentary on the place of art amongst political and cultural chaos, his incisive, almost instinctive understanding of apartheid South Africa from the Afrikaaner POV, his grabbling with the politics and morals of desire ... It all adds up to this beautiful mess of a book that I prefer, oddly, to his cleaner and tighter novels. A Dry White Season is a better book; this one somehow cuts to the heart.

[Dennis Rink · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful, enthralling book that works on so many levels, very clever in its construction and tackling a difficult subject. I was drawn to it because it was written at the time that I left South Africa and it reminded me of why I left. And while it purports to be a love story, or at least, about a love story, it is really about the political situation of the time.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wat een pareltje.
Hoe kun je een liefdesverhaal schrijven terwijl de wereld om je heen in brand staat? Waarvoor kies je dan? de veilige kristallen bulp waarin twee geliefden zweven of kies je als schrijver net voor de weergave van die brandende maatschappij?
Wat een knap staaltje metafictie.
Brink, je doet het weer...

[Ann Tonks · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought that I had read all of Andre Brink's novels but this one had escaped my attention. I found it too selfconscious for my taste and ultimately found the "hero" distastefu. Berhaps it's just the 30 year age difference in the core sexual relationship that I didn't want to believe.

[Ilze · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a juicy piece of literature this is! I've always enjoyed semiotics and this book is a three-pronged "state of emergency" ... you have the political situation in South Africa, added to a romance from the past and an infidelity in the moment (if you like you could add the current "state of emergency", viz. covid). I enjoyed the way Brink brings the reader into the writing and how he goes about it, e.g. "this character perhaps needs ..." and then giving examples such as Kristeva, Lacan and others. Quite postmodern pastiche along with his favourite Don Quixote twist (the importance of which he also mentions in A fork in the Road). There are parts every one of us can identify with whether you're a lover, married, single or adulterer. There are also parts which I found quite soppy and the occasional erotic simile stretched too far.

For various reasons this book is not available in South Africa (has never been), so thanks to Amazon, I have it on my shelf! Added to that I find it very sad that an Afrikaans author feels the need to express his writing in English.

[Vilma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oli vaikea päästä tähän sisälle mutta kun viimein pääsin, tempauduin mukaan täysillä. En tiedä johtuiko alkukankeus minusta vai kirjasta. Tarinat kietoutuivat hienosti yhteen mutta kirja oli myös vähän sekava. Toisaalta taaskaan en tiedä oliko vika minussa. Poikkeustilan tapahtumien ja rasististen käytäntöjen kuvaus oli sielua riipivää. Tykkäsin tyylistä missä ei ole yhtä selkeää tarinaa ja kirjailija kyseenalaisti itseään. Intertekstuaaliset viittaukset ärsyttivät, niiden ymmärtämättömyydestä tuli tyhmä olo. Yksi upeimpia kohtia oli metsäpalo. Jään pohtimaan tätä kirjaa.