Philida (Brink)

Author Bio
• Birth—May 29, 1935
• Where—Vrede, South Africa
• Education—N/A
• Currently—lives in Cape Town, South Africa


Andre Philippus Brink, OIS, is a South African novelist. He writes in Afrikaans and English and is a Professor of English at the University of Cape Town. He has written more than 20 novels. His latest Philida (2012) was on the longlist for the ManBooker Prize.

In the 1960s he, along with Ingrid Jonker and Breyten Breytenbach, was a key figure 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 translated Kennis van die aand into English and published it abroad as Looking on Darkness. This was his first self-translation. Since then Brink writes his works simultaneously in English and Afrikaans.

While Brink's early novels were especially concerned with apartheid, his more recent work engages the new range issues posed by life in a democratic South Africa. Brink's son, Anton Brink, is an artist. (From Wikipedia.)