Brink, Andre

1935–2015
South African novelist

Andre Phillipus Brink is a South African novelist who writes in both Afrikaans and English. He became known as known one of the “Sixtyers,” writers of the 1960s who wanted to revolutionize South African fiction by addressing social, moral, and political issues.

Born in SOUTH AFRICA, Brink was educated both there and in France. His early books were not political in nature, but his later ones examined the human cost of the government's policy of apartheid. His novel An Instant in the Wind (1975) deals with the destructive nature of racism by exploring the relationship between a black man and a white woman. In The Chain of Voices (1982), Brink looks at an 1825 slave revolt through the eyes of characters on both sides of the conflict. Though praised outside of South Africa, Brink's novels have often been unpopular in his homeland, and some were banned by the South African government. (See also Apartheid, Literature.)