The Rowing Lesson - Softcover

Landsman, Anne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0795702620 ISBN 13: 9780795702624

Publisher: Kwela Books, 2007

Synopsis

Winner of the South African M-Net Literary Prize (English category).

“Rarely in South African writing will we encounter language of such fire and passion.”—J.M. Coetzee

“The beauty of The Rowing Lesson is in its fluid metaphors, its urgent storytelling . . . and the lyric desperation of a daughter’s love.”—O Magazine

“Beautiful. . . . Unfailingly original.”—Jennifer Egan

“Visceral. . . . Intensely exhilarating.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Like Joyce or William Gass or John Edgar Wideman, Anne Landsman fashions a sensual web of memory and desire, rescuing a world on the brink of extinction through the power of her lyricism.”—Stewart O’Nan

“Amazing.”—Los Angeles Times

“A tour de force.”—Roxana Robinson

“An adventure in language. . . . It makes art of life.”—Louis Menand

Betsy Klein is summoned from her home in the United States to the bedside of her dying father in a South African hospital. Faced with having to say goodbye, she delves into his mind, speaking to him in the lyrical second-person. She imaginatively recreates his life—his struggles to become a doctor after being orphaned young and his fight to win the respect of his Boer patients as a Jew—as well as her own experiences with him as a father.

Anne Landsman was born and raised in South Africa and received degrees from the University of Cape Town and Columbia University. Her debut novel, The Devil’s Chimney, also set in South Africa, was a Book of the Month Club Quality Paperback Selection and was nominated for a PEN/Hemingway Award. She lives in Manhattan with her husband and two children.

About this title

About the Author

Anne Landsman is the author of the novels The Rowing Lesson and The Devil’s Chimney. The Rowing Lesson was awarded South Africa’s two top literary awards—the 2009 Sunday Times Fiction Prize and South Africa’s 2009 M-Net Literary Award for English fiction—and was shortlisted for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the Harold U. Ribalow Prize. Award nominations for The Devil’s Chimney include the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize. She has contributed essays to the anthologies Touch, An Uncertain Inheritance and The Honeymoon’s Over and has written for numerous publications including Vanity Fair, The Washington Post, The American Poetry Review, The Believer, The Guardian and The Telegraph. Born in South Africa, she lives in New York City with her husband and two children.
From the Hardcover edition.

Review

Winner of the South African M-Net Literary Prize Winner of the Sunday Times Fiction Prize
Shortlisted for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature
Shortlisted for the Harold U. Ribalow Prize
Top 29 Financial Times Fiction Books of the Year Selection
Top 10 Times South African Books of the Year Selection

“Visceral. . . . Intensely exhilarating.”—The New York Times Book Review 

“Amazing.”—Los Angeles Times 

“The beauty of The Rowing Lesson is in its fluid metaphors, its urgent storytelling . . . and the lyric desperation of a daughter’s love.”—O Magazine 

“Rarely in South African writing will we encounter language of such fire and passion.”—J.M. Coetzee 

“Beautiful. . . . Unfailingly original.”—Jennifer Egan 

“Like Joyce or William Gass or John Edgar Wideman, Anne Landsman fashions a sensual web of memory and desire, rescuing a world on the brink of extinction through the power of her lyricism.”—Stewart O’Nan 

“A tour de force.”—Roxana Robinson 

“An adventure in language. . . . It makes art of life.”—Louis Menand
From the Hardcover edition.

About this edition

• Publisher: Kwela Books
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0795702620
• ISBN 13: 9780795702624
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224