Henrietta Rose-Innes
Autor(a) de Nineveh
Obras por Henrietta Rose-Innes
Associated Works
Jambula Tree and other stories: The Caine Prize for African Writing 8th Annual Collection (2008) — Contribuidor — 15 exemplares
Ten years of the Caine Prize for African writing : plus J.M. Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer and Ben Okri (2009) — Contribuidor — 12 exemplares
Etiquetado
Conhecimento Comum
- Data de nascimento
- 1971-09-14
- Sexo
- female
- Nacionalidade
- South Africa
- Locais de residência
- Cape Town, South Africa
Stuttgart, Germany
Lausanne, Switzerland - Prémios e menções honrosas
- Southern African PEN short story award (2007)
Caine Prize for African Writing (2008)
Membros
Críticas
Prémios
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Associated Authors
Estatísticas
- Obras
- 12
- Also by
- 7
- Membros
- 126
- Popularidade
- #159,216
- Avaliação
- 3.7
- Críticas
- 5
- ISBN
- 22
- Línguas
- 3
The Biblical city of Nineveh is famous for both its disobedience to God as well as its repentance—a study in contrasts. Rose-Innes’ fascinating novel is as well. Katya and her sister grew up basically homeless, carted around by their alternatively abusive and engaging father, who was a pest exterminator, and who has since left their lives. The two sisters have responded differently to their chaotic upbringing. While her sister has rebelled by embracing order and family unity, Katya, who follows in her father’s profession and perhaps more, remains adrift, without relationships, without much in terms of possessions, living in a chaotic hovel that threatens to fall down about her. She resists, at times violently, any attempt to order her world.
Then she gets a chance, through her work, to live in the modern Nineveh, in this case a new housing development in South Africa that is a study in perfection and order on the edge of wild and unruly nature. It offers all things to all people. But all is not right here. There are the bugs. Sheets of them. Oceans of them. Biblical plague quantities of them. Katya must clean out Nineveh or leave, a failure.
She is torn. She rejects attachment to people or things, but she is drawn to Nineveh and the promise of a clean, luxurious place to live, even if temporarily, because it stills a chaos inside her. And strangely enough, she can’t find any bugs—although she knows they are there, somewhere beneath the surface. Actually there is more beneath the surface, both in Nineveh and in herself, that needs finding, and it is only when she breaks through the thin veneer, both in the buildings and in herself, that the past in the form of her dark and dangerous father—and the bugs--invade in waves.
This novel would be ideal for a group discussion. Seldom has a writer taken me so far into a protagonist’s thoughts, motives, and fears. Rose-Innes’ character are masterfully drawn and their development is both realistic as well as enlightening. The layers of metaphor and symbolism in this novel would provide fuel for a group reading or a literature class even as it provides a wonderful and entertaining story. The South-African voice and setting made this novel even more interesting to me, although the themes are certainly universal—siblings, coming to grips with a parent’s neglect and even violence, and processing all of this to develop our own world view and perspective.
The bugs were wicked cool too…
I would like to thank Gallic books for allowing me to read and review this very fine novel.
5 stars.
… (mais)