Of voyages and embellishments

One of those smacking great must-reads, it has arrived unexpectedly like a comet in a dim sky. With shouts from Nadine Gordimer and Andr Brink enthusing over their advance copies, its special South African interest is guaranteed.

The author Per WŠstberg is Swedish, born in 1933. Perhaps locally he is known for his part in organising a conference of emerging African writers in Uppsala in 1967. Chaired by Es'kia Mphahlele, this watershed event elected to impose the cultural boycott of apartheid South Africa, which is one factor that has rendered our scope so diminished ever since. Nowadays WŠstberg chairs that dynamite panel the Nobel Committee for Literature and, like the hero of this work, has always maintained a special African concern.