Synopses & Reviews
From the acclaimed South African novelist, a lyrical tale of self-discovery in post-apartheid cape town.
Set in a beautifully rendered 1990s Cape Town, Playing in the Light revolves around Marion, a woman of Afrikaner background, who hates traveling but nonetheless runs a travel agency, and her complex relationship with Brenda, the first black woman she has ever employed.
In writing as finely detailed and attuned to psychological nuance as Anita Brookner's, Wicomb depicts the life of a complicated, single woman in a changing and complicated place. Caught up in the narrow world of private interests and self-advancement, Marion eschews national politics until the exposures of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission lead to the discovery of a skeleton in the family cupboard. While her aging father is unable and unwilling to supply the truth, Marion's young employee becomes implicated in the piecing together of Marion's past, leading to a defining transformation and widening of Marion's world.
In this impeccably wrought new work, the acclaimed author of You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town provides wisdom and insight about the new South Africa and about people everywhere.
Review
"Post-apartheid South Africa is indeed a new world. . . . With this novel, Wicomb proves a keen guide."
—New York Times
"Delectable. . . . Wicombs prose is as delightful and satisfying in its culmination as watching the sun set over the Atlantic Ocean."
—Christian Science Monitor
"[A] thoughtful, poetic novel."
—The Times (London)
"Deep and subtle. . . . This tight, dense novel gives complex history a human face."
—Kirkus
Synopsis
"In her ambitious third novel, Wicomb explores South Africa's history through a woman's attempt to answer questions surrounding her past" (The New Yorker). Set in a beautifully rendered 1990s Cape Town, Windham Campbell Prize winner Zo Wicomb's celebrated novel revolves around Marion Campbell, who runs a travel agency but hates traveling, and who, in post-apartheid society, must negotiate the complexities of a knotty relationship with Brenda, her first black employee. As Alison McCulloch noted in the New York Times, "Wicomb deftly explores the ghastly soup of racism in all its unglory--denial, tradition, habit, stupidity, fear--and manages to do so without moralizing or becoming formulaic."
Caught in the narrow world of private interests and self-advancement, Marion eschews national politics until the Truth and Reconciliation Commission throws up information that brings into question not only her family's past but her identity and her rightful place in contemporary South African society. "Stylistically nuanced and psychologically astute," Playing in the Light is as powerful in its depiction of Marion's personal journey as it is in its depiction of South Africa's bizarre, brutal history (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).
"Post-apartheid South Africa is indeed a new world . . . With this novel, Wicomb proves a keen guide." --The New York Times
"Delectable . . . Wicomb's prose is as delightful and satisfying in its culmination as watching the sun set over the Atlantic Ocean." --The Christian Science Monitor
" A] thoughtful, poetic novel." --The Times (London)
Synopsis
By the Windham Campbell Prize winnerSet in a beautifully rendered 1990s Cape Town, Zoë Wicombs celebrated novel revolves around Marion Campbell, who runs a travel agency but hates traveling, and who, in post-apartheid society, must negotiate the complexities of a knotty relationship with Brenda, her first black employee. As Alison McCulloch noted in the New York Times, "Wicomb deftly explores the ghastly soup of racism in all its unglorydenial, tradition, habit, stupidity, fearand manages to do so without moralizing or becoming formulaic."
Caught in the narrow world of private interests and self-advancement, Marion eschews national politics until the Truth and Reconciliation Commission throws up information that brings into question not only her familys past but her identity and her rightful place in contemporary South African society. "Stylistically nuanced and psychologically astute" (Kirkus), Playing in the Light is as powerful in its depiction of Marion's personal journey as it is in its depiction of South Africa's bizarre, brutal history.
About the Author
Zoë Wicomb was born in South Africa in 1948 and returned in 1991, after twenty years of voluntary exile, to teach at the University of the Western Cape. The author of two previous works of fiction, she currently lives in Glasgow and teaches at the University of Strathclyde, Scotland. She is the winner of a 2013 Windham Campbell Prize.