RED DOG, a frontier novel, translated by Michiel Heyns

427pp., paperback, First English Language Edition, Cape Town, 2018

First published in Afrikaans in 2014 as Buys. Winner of the University of Johannesburg Prize, the WA Hofmeyr Prize, the kykNET Rapport Prize, the SALA K. Sello Duiker Memorial Literary Award, the Helgaard Steyn Prize and the Hertzog Prize.

An historical novel about Coenraad de Buys, a legend on the frontier of the Cape Colony in the late eighteenth century. Born in the Langkloof in 1761, he was one of a number of white people who sided with the Xhosa during the frontier wars against the Boers and then the British. A polygamist, a swindler, the bane of government, father to numerous children, he moved around southern Africa. He died on the banks of the Limpopo in 1821.

"The South African equivalent of the postmodern cowboys-and-Indians tales of Cormac McCarthy." Rain Malan, author of My Traitor's Heart

"Without a doubt the most important Afrikaans novel in recent years." Marlene van Niekerk, author of Triomf and Agaat

"Buys is a great novel." Breyten Breytenbach

Willem Anker's first novel, Siegfried won the University of Johannesburg Prize and the Jan Rabie/Rapport Prize. He teaches creative writing and Afrikaans literature at Stellenbosch University.