Before I Forget: A Novel - Hardcover

Brink, Andre

3.59

276 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1402208669 ISBN 13: 9781402208669

Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark, 2007

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An unforgettable story of a man's reflection on the a spent loving and the last great love of his life.

Chris Minaar is a distinguished South African writer who has lost his gift for the word. That is, until, he meets Rachel, a woman destined to become the great love of his life, a love greater for being unfulfilled.

Before I Forget is the final act of Chris's creative life; it is the coming together of all the chaotic pieces of his existence. It is much more than the story of how he met Rachel; it is the story of his life and his lifetime of loves. There are brief affairs, extended affairs, even a marriage and in all of them we find Chris retelling his joys and pains in such a way that they move us to tears and beyond.

Erotic, searingly honest, and a profoundly moving novel, this is the history of a life set against the history of a nation and, more than anything, a tribute to lost lovers and our very ability to love at all.

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From the Inside Flap:

Chris Minnaar is a distinguished South African writer who has lost his gift for the word�that is, until he experiences the last great love of his life. He first encounters Rachel, a sculptress, on New Year�s Eve. Rachel becomes the great love of his life, a love greater for being unfulfilled.

When he loses her, Chris is ready to perform his final creative act: an assembly of the beautiful and ugly pieces of his existence, defined by the women he has loved. There have been numerous erotic affairs, tender relationships and a tragically ended marriage, all of which have left their indelible marks. Among them are Bonnie, his father�s secretary; Grethe, who arranges for her many lovers to meet at a party in her absence; and Chris�s own mother, whose memory has faded in old age. Chris loves each woman uniquely, and his reflections convey a deep appreciation for their individual beauty and spirit.

Erotic, candid and elegiac, Before I Forget is the history of a man�s life set against the turbulent history of his nation. More than anything, however, it is a rich tribute to the power of love.

Nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature and twice short-listed for England�s prestigious Booker Prize, Andr� Brink is one of South Africa�s most distinguished novelists. He is the author of seventeen works of fiction and an outspoken recorder of South Africa�s turbulent history from the days of apartheid to the present. He wrote the first Afrikaans book to be banned for political content. In 1992, Brink was awarded the Monismanien Human Rights Award for making known the injustice of apartheid to the wider world. He has also worked for over forty years as an academic and translator of works as varied as Mary Poppins and Shakespeare into Afrikaans.

From the Back Cover:

"Peter Carey, Garc�a Marquez, Solzhenitsyn: Andr� Brink must be considered with that class of writer."
-Guardian

"[Before I Forget] is a complex, many-layered attempt to combine eroticism with broader social and political issues and Brink, in the steps of Scheherazade, is skillful at enclosing stories within stories."
-Sunday Times

"Brink has a dazzling narrative gift and an acute insight into personality that are bound together with an indisputable integrity."
-Boston Sunday Globe

"There is so much grace, dignity and passion fused in Brink's work that, compared to it, most contemporary novels will seem spare and lacking, mean-spirited or horribly self-indulgent."
- San Francisco Chronicle

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