LOOKING ON DARKNESS

Author and Title: Brink (André P.) LOOKING ON DARKNESS

Collation: First US edition, first printing: 400 pages, cloth-backed paperboards with gilt-stamped spine, original pictorial dust jacket. The publisher’s original two-tone cloth binding is square, tight, and exceptionally clean, with the gilt spine titles remaining bright. Internally pristine; the text block is fresh, crisp, and entirely free of marginalia, foxing, or institutional markings. The original unclipped dust jacket is structurally complete, now protected in a clear archival sleeve; it displays standard shelf wear, edge rubbing, and light creasing along the perimeters, with paper loss concentrated at the crown and foot of the spine panel not affecting text or major design elements. A very good copy.

Inscribed by the author on the preliminary page to the political historian, Professor Herman Giliomee: "Vir Herman, in die hoop op die lig anderkant die donker. André" (For Herman, in the hope of light on the other side of darkness. André). Further signed by Brink in full on the main title page.

Notes: Looking on Darkness is the author’s own English translation of his landmark novel, Kennis van die Aand—the historic first Afrikaans novel to be officially banned by the South African apartheid regime under the Publications Control Act of 1974. Following the story of Joseph Malan, a Coloured actor facing execution for the murder of his white lover, the text delivered a blistering critique of racial legislation and social hypocrisy. The provenance of this volume marks a significant intersection between two leading South African intellectuals of the era: Brink, who challenged the myths of apartheid through avant-garde fiction, and Giliomee, who provided its definitive historical deconstruction, notably in his major work The Afrikaners: Biography of a People.
Size: 8vo (215 x 140 mm)
Imprint: New York, William Morrow & Company, 1974