Agaat (101 page)

MARLENE VAN NIEKERK is an award-winning poet, novelist, and short story writer. Her novel
Triomf
(translated by Leon de Kock) was a
New York Times
Notable Book, 2004, and won the Central News Agency Literary Award, the M-Net Prize in South Africa, and the prestigious Noma Award, the first Afrikaans novel to do so.
Agaat
received the
Sunday Times
Fiction Prize and the Hertzog Prize. Van Niekerk is currently an associate professor in Afrikaans and Dutch literature and creative writing at Stellenbosch University in South Africa.

 

MICHIEL HEYNS's novels include
The Children's Day
,
The Reluctant Passenger
, and
The Typewriter's Tale
. He has translated two works by Marlene van Niekerk,
Memorandum
and
Agaat
, for which he received the English Academy's Sol Plaatje Award for Translation. He also translated
Equatoria
by Tom Dreyer (Aflame Books UK, 2008). His latest novel,
Bodies Politic
, was recently published by Jonathan Ball.

Copyright © by Marlene van Niekerk 2004

Translation copyright © by Michiel Heyns and Marlene van Niekerk 2006

© First published in Afrikaans in trade paperback in South Africa by Tafelberg Publishers, 2004

© First published in English in trade paperback in South Africa by Jonathan Ball Publishers (PYT) Ltd, 2006

First U.S. edition published by Tin House Books 2010

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, contact Tin House Books, 2601 NW Thurman St., Portland, OR 97210.

Published by Tin House Books, Portland, Oregon, and New York, New York

Distributed to the trade by Publishers Group West, 1700 Fourth St., Berkeley, CA 94710,
www.pgw.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Van Niekerk, Marlene.

[Agaat. English]

Agaat / Marlene van Niekerk ; translated by Michiel Heyns. -- 1st U.S. ed.

p. cm.

First published in English in South Africa by Jonathan Ball Publishers under the title The way of the women (2006).

Translated from the Afrikaans.

eISBN : 978-0-982-56918-4

1. Women farmers--South Africa--Fiction. 2. Women domestics--South Africa-Fiction. 3. South Africa--Social life and customs--Fiction. I. Heyns, Michiel. II. Title.

PT6592.32.A545A6513 2010

839.3636--dc22

2009039476