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Red Dog

Red Dog

Written by Willem Anker

Translated by Michiel Heyns

Original language:
Afrikaans
Longlisted
The International Booker Prize 2020
Published by Pushkin Press

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Willem Anker’s fiercely powerful novel is a wild, epic tale of Africa in a time before boundaries between cultures and peoples were fixed

In the 18th century, a giant bestrides the border of the Cape Colony frontier. Coenraad de Buys is a legend, a polygamist, a swindler and a big talker; a rebel who fights with Xhosa chieftains against the Boers and British; the fierce patriarch of a sprawling mixed-race family with a veritable tribe of followers; a savage enemy and a loyal ally. Like the wild dogs who are always at his heels, he roams the shifting landscape of southern Africa, hungry and spoiling for a fight.

Willem Anker

Willem Anker

Willem Anker was born in Citrusdal in the Western Cape in 1979 and lectures in creative writing at Stellenbosch University
More about Willem Anker
Michiel Heyns

Michiel Heyns

Michiel Heyns grew up in various towns and cities all over South Africa, and studied at the Universities of Stellenbosch and Cambridge
More about Michiel Heyns