In a Language That You Know (African Poetry Book)

Verwey, Len

ISBN 10: 0803290985 / ISBN 13: 9780803290983

Published by University of Nebraska Press, 2017

About this Item

Seller Inventory # mon0004143779

Bibliographic Details

• Title: In a Language That You Know (African Poetry Book)
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Publication Date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0803290985
• ISBN 13: 9780803290983
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Fine

About this title

Synopsis

South Africa is a complicated, contradictory, and haunted place. Len Verwey captures the trajectory of life in such a place, dealing with childhood, war, marriage, divorce, and death. He explores the challenges posed by place and history, shared identities, deep embeddedness in the continent, and the legacies of violence and exclusion, as well as beauty. 

Verwey offers poems that speak of uncertainty, ask questions, and challenge simplistic and scapegoating narratives that become so tempting when living in a society undergoing intense social and economic pressure. Dealing less with factual or political explanations of war and more with the compulsion of war, in particular, “maleness” and violence, Verwey pulls the reader into another world, opening eyes to the “crisis of men,” the violence against women, children, and the foreign in a country where conflicts are again escalating. In a Language That You Know strives to understand the complexity of one of the most unequal, violent, yet most vibrant societies in the world.

 

About the Author

Len Verwey is a South African poet. He was born in Mozambique in 1973. His chapbook Otherwise Everything Goes On is included in the boxed set Seven New Generation African Poets, and his poems have been published in various journals including New Coin and New Contrast.