Dark Rider - Softcover

Iris Johansen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1874923035 ISBN 13: 9781874923039

Publisher: Snailpress/Mayibuye Books, South Africa, 1992

Synopsis

131p. Tatamkulu Afrika's long life encompasses fighting at Tobruk, being interned in a prisoner of war camp, working for twenty years in the Namibian copper mines, converting to Islam, founding the AI-Jihaad organisation, being arrested for "terrorism" while in his sixties, and emerging as a major poet in his seventies. His first book of poems, Nine Lives, was published in 1991 when the poet was 71. Recognition came quickly, with the book winning the 1991 CNA Debut Award and the 1992 Olive Schreiner Prize. His poetry has won several other literary awards. Dark Rider, Afrika's second book, shows a marked development in this writer's work. Informed by his compassion and unflinching truthfulness, these poems open up a world which has the clarity of daylight. Here are intimately observed poem-portraits of bergies, MK fighters, lovers, muggers, police interrogators, prisoners, beggars, political heroes, South Africans stranded and strangled by starvation or deprivation or lust for power -- yet often liberated, even if momentarily, by their will to live. Tatamkulu Afrika has touched and smelled them, looked them in the eyes, and described them in supple and original language. Dark Rider is a vivid story told by a great poet-storyteller.

About this edition

• Publisher: Snailpress/Mayibuye Books, South Africa
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 1874923035
• ISBN 13: 9781874923039
• Binding: Paperback