MISKIEN NOOIT: 'N SOMERSPEL

Author and Title: Brink (André P.) MISKIEN NOOIT: ’n Somerspel

Collation: First edition, first printing: octavo (8vo), 175 pages, structured as a stylized "film-novel" narrative layout. Original publisher's premium textured hardcover boards, in the original illustrated dust jacket. A very good copy. The cloth binding remains flat, rigid, and true, showing faint edge friction consistent with standard archival storage; the spine is square and the joints are tight. Text block is robustly bound and secure; pages are clean, bright, and completely free of marginalia or modern highlighting. The original illustrated dust jacket is whole and structurally complete, exhibiting faint, uniform age-toning to the spine and minor creasing along the extreme upper edges, without major paper losses or tears; now protected in a clear archival plastic sleeve.

 

A highly unusual association copy bearing two distinct handwritings: an elegant, contemporary non-authorial inscription on the preliminary page ("Vir Janna – Stellenbosch – 1967") and a subsequent humorous handwritten note directly beneath it by the author, signed and dated thirty-seven years later in a mature hand: "Veertig jaar later in plaas van ’n bra. Hartlike nawense 06.11.04 André".

Notes: Published in 1967, Miskien Nooit is one of André P. Brink’s key experimental works from the high era of the Sestigers literary movement, alongside titles like Lobola vir die Lewe and Orgie.

Written using a modern cinematic technique, the "film-novel" structure shifts perspectives to unpack the psychological tension between memory and fiction. The unique double inscription profile highlights the history of this copy within Brink's academic and literary circles in Stellenbosch, updated decades later with a characteristic flash of the author's renowned wit. André Philippus Brink (1935–2015) was a leading figure in South African letters whose creative legacy is preserved across major institutional archives, including the University of Cape Town Libraries Special Collections.

Size: 8vo (215 x 140 mm)
Imprint: Cape Town / Pretoria, Human & Rousseau, 1967