THE EQUALITY OF SHADOWS, a novel

435pp., paperback, Johannesburg, 2024

"When an unusual building appeared overnight in a remote northern Cape community in the 1970s, and disappeared a few weeks later, it seemed to point to a series of baffling existential overlaps. Some individuals claimed that occasionally they found themselves on the other side of a restive civil war divide, in identity embodiments that were highly contrary versions of themselves. In other cases, absurd social situations seemed to mock ‘normal reality’ by alternating with it. When a small-town journalist reported on the events, his quiet life became cruelly disrupted by unwanted attention. Were these accounts imagined or real?" from the back cover

"An ambitious, haunting, wickedly funny and deeply moving novel about betrayal, the sins of the fathers, and love lost and found." Bronwyn Law-Viljoen, author of Notes on Falling and The Printmaker

Poet, novelist and philosopher South African poet Charl Pierre Naudé is the the author of the collections Die nomadiese oomblik (1997 Ingrid Jonker prize), In die geheim van die dag (2005 M-Net Prize for Poetry), translated as Against the Light, and Al die lieflike dade, and the novel Die Ongelooflike Onskuld van Dirkie Verwey (UJ Prize for Afrikaans Literature and the Jan Rabie-Rapport Prize). Naudé is a researcher in the Department of Afrikaans and Dutch, French and German, University of the Free State. He lives in Johannesburg.