Present Of Books A Walk in the Night and Other Stories
| Title | : | A Walk in the Night and Other Stories |
| Author | : | Alex La Guma |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 129 pages |
| Published | : | January 1st 1968 by Northwestern University Press (first published 1962) |
| Categories | : | Cultural. Africa. Fiction. Short Stories. Southern Africa. South Africa. Academic. School |
Alex La Guma
Paperback | Pages: 129 pages Rating: 3.68 | 308 Users | 25 Reviews
Explanation As Books A Walk in the Night and Other Stories
Of French and Malagasy stock, involved in South African politics from an early age, Alex La Guma was arrested for treason with 155 others in 1956 and finally acquitted in 1960. During the State of Emergency following the Sharpeville massacre he was detained for five months. Continuing to write, he endured house arrest and solitary confinement. La Guma left South Africa as a refugee in 1966 and lived in exile in London and Havana. He died in 1986.A Walk in the Night and Other Stories reveals La Guma as one of the most important African writers of his time. These works reveal the plight of non-whites in apartheid South Africa, laying bare the lives of the poor and the outcasts who filled the ghettoes and shantytowns.
A walk in the night --
Tattoo marks and nails --
At the Portagee's --
The gladiators --
Blankets --
A matter of taste --
The lemon orchard
Details Books Supposing A Walk in the Night and Other Stories
| Original Title: | A Walk in the Night and Other Stories |
| ISBN: | 0810101394 (ISBN13: 9780810101395) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Rating Of Books A Walk in the Night and Other Stories
Ratings: 3.68 From 308 Users | 25 ReviewsJudge Of Books A Walk in the Night and Other Stories
This is a powerful and evocative book. It is essentially one long story about one existential night in the life of a powerless black man in South Africa. He gets fired from his job for talking back to his white boss. The writing is raw and electric. The night is full of normal adventures that take on a tragic tone in light of his proscribed circumstances. How does one be a man in a world where authority denies you respect? You drink, curse, fight and maybe turn to crime.This is the book that made me want to study African lit.
A novella set in the slums of Cape Town and six very short stories, all written in a stark realistic style, but with many arresting metaphors and similes; taken together, they give a good idea of life under the apartheid regime during the early sixties. La Guma is one of the best known novelists of South Africa; I read his In the Fog of the Season's End some thirty-five years ago, a similar book although I don't remember many details.
I really enjoyed the majority of its stories, especially the novella "A walk in the night", I think Tarantino should do a movie about it -and some of the other stories-, I can really relate it to his style. The author's style is mostly raw, although there are some passages on which he intends to make some metaphors out of either a situation or a place (built by a series of nouns) that didn't quite help for such composition, yes it is intended to sound poetic, yet it seems misplaced -at least for
Critical
There's so much world literature that I have missed out on, and reading Alex la Guma's South African fiction was a reminder that there is so much I need to seek out. I read it as part of the "Literary Homage" seminar I took with Tony Eprile at Lesley University. It's a retelling, if you will, of Hamlet. Claudius is played by colonialism, and all of District 6 is the usurped prince. The writing is specific and steady, a regular pulse of contained rage. Characters are described physically in such
(Rating is only for The Lemon Orchard.)
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