MY MOTHER'S LAUGHTER, selected poems, edited by Ivan Vladislavić and Robert Berold

: van Wyk (C.)

R 160.00
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92pp., paperback, Makhanda, 2020.

 

Introduction by Ivan Vladislavic.

Includes work from Chris van Wyk's only published book of poems, It is Time to go Home (1979) plus others that were published in literary journals.

Chris van Wyk was born in Soweto in 1957. When he was older, his family moved to Riverlea, a suburb outside Johannesburg created for people classified Coloured by the apartheid government. He lived here until 2005. He worked for the South African Committee for Higher Education (Sached) and was editor of the literary magazine Staffrider from 1981 to 1986. In his autobiographical novels Shirley, Goodness & Mercy (2004) and Eggs to Lay, Chickens to Hatch (2010), he writes about growing up in Riverlea. His first and only book of poems, It Is Time to Go Home, was published in 1979 and won the Olive Schreiner Prize. He went on to write short biographies and children's stories, including A Message in the Wind and Petroleum and the Orphaned Ostrich. He did however continue to write poetry, and this selection includes both published and unpublished poems. Chris van Wyk died in 2014.