A POOR SEASON FOR WHALES

319pp., paperback, Johannesburg, 2020

A middle-aged woman moves to Hermanus after a divorce and meets a charismatic young man who takes an unsettling interest in her life.

Michiel Heyns's previous novels include Lost Ground (Herman Charles Bosman Award for English Fiction and the Sunday Times Fiction Prize 2012), A Sportful Malice (Herman Charles Bosman Prize for English Fiction 2015) and Bodies Politic (Herman Charles Bosman Award for English Fiction 2009). He also won the 2008 English Academy's Sol Plaatje Award for Translating as well as the South African Translators' Institute Award for a Literary Translation for his translation of Marlene van Niekerk's Agaat. He reviewed regularly for the Sunday Independent, for which he was awarded the English Academy's Pringle Prize for Reviewing for 2006 and again for 2010. He was Professor of English at the University of Stellenbosch.