Before I Forget

An unforgettable story of a man's reflection on the a spent loving and the last great love of his life.

Chris Minaar is a distinguished South African writer who has lost his gift for the word. That is, until, he meets Rachel, a woman destined to become the great love of his life, a love greater for being unfulfilled.

Before I Forget is the final act of Chris's creative life; it is the coming together of all the chaotic pieces of his existence. It is much more than the story of how he met Rachel; it is the story of his life and his lifetime of loves. There are brief affairs, extended affairs, even a marriage and in all of them we find Chris retelling his joys and pains in such a way that they move us to tears and beyond.

Erotic, searingly honest, and a profoundly moving novel, this is the history of a life set against the history of a nation and, more than anything, a tribute to lost lovers and our very ability to love at all.

Thrice nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature and twice shortlisted for the Booker Prize, ANDRÉ BRINK is one of South Africa’s eminent novelists. He is the author of over 20 works of fiction, many of them written during the years when apartheid dominated the culture of his country. His first openly political novel, Kennis van die Aand became a cause célèbre. It was banned a year after its publication under new censorship laws applied for the first time to an Afrikaans writer. Brink later translated the work into English as Looking on Darkness. A prolific literary critic and dramatist, Brink has worked for over 40 years as an academic and as a translator of works as varied as Mary Poppins and Shakespeare’s plays into Afrikaans. André Brink is an outspoken recorder of South Africa’s turbulent history from the days of apartheid to the present.