237 pp., paperback, First English Language Edition, Cape Town, 2014

A collection of short stories, first published in Afrikaans. The Afrikaans edition was awarded the University of Johannesburg Debut Prize and the Jan Rabie Rapport Prize.

"Cool, intelligent, unsettling and deeply felt, Naudé's voice is something new in South African writing." Damon Galgut, from his introduction

"Naudé writes compellingly about South Africa and its dilemmas, but he is equally at home in many other places, in Hanoi, Phoenix, London, Tokyo. His characters are restless, drifting between cultures and languages, the farm and the city, the difficult present and the vanished past...This is fiction attuned to the 'borderless world' inhabited by the 'lapsed South Africans' of the post-apartheid era. Naudé's debut was acclaimed in the Afrikaans literary world, marking the arrival of a questioning, cosmopolitan writer. This English translation will bring him the wider readership he deserves." Ivan Vladislaviḉ

"For the discerning reader the substantial stories in this collection provide a feast of rare originality and revelatory power. In exquisitely honed classical prose and with acute psychological insight Naudé shows how the social forces of our times bear upon the private lives of individuals. He is one of those rare South African writers who can subtly balance a relentless investigation of contemporary political conditions with an informed interest in the shape of mourning and desire in his characters." Marlene van Niekerk

SJ Naudé studied law at the University of Pretoria as well as at Cambridge and Columbia. Having worked in New York and London for many years he currently lives in Cape Town. In 2013 he was awarded the Jan Rabie and Marjorie Wallace Writing Scholarship.

THE ALPHABET OF BIRDS

: Naudé (S.)

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