Dog Heart: A Memoir [Hardcover]

Breyten Breytenbach (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 25, 1999

Breyten Breytenbach's meditations are informed by a profound intelligence and wit and an overriding sense of the past. He is captivated by memories of the land that is no more, of the child he must have been. Breytenbach begins Dog Heart with his own beginning in Bonnievale, South Africa, and looks at his homeland through the prism of memory to uncover a new landscape. We read of the ouvolk, the moon and stars and trees and shrubs and rocks that are really petrified shamans, subterranean travelers, death dancers who change themselves into rocks to become invisible to those who invade the land. Then over time they forget to change back. Through searching honesty and dreamlike lyricism, Breytenbach raises the memoir to a new level.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

If any South African writer's fragmentary meditations are worth reading, those by BreytenbachAthe essayist (The Memory of Birds in Times of Revolution, etc.), poet, painter and ex-revolutionary who is still a renegade AfrikanerAare in the front rank. Long based in Paris, he has repeatedly returned to his beloved home territory in the rural Cape Province for brief periods, eliciting this mix of reportage and reflection. Those who know South Africa can fill in the political and geographical context; others may find many passages cryptic. For the former group, Breytenbach is an unsparing observer, unwilling to blame the country's endemic violence on historic racism. True, an opening anecdote notes how "the [white] security dogs" once harassed a clergyman, but threaded through the book is a gruesome blotter of crimes committed by the black and the brown. The contemporaneous passagesAincluding visits with friends and relatives and some utterly South African encounters, as when an old man on the street asks "what race am I?" or when the author meets homeless beach dwellers whose patriotic "installation" reminds him of a graveAcontrast with Breytenbach's more distanced reflections on family forebears. Throughout, the writing is artful and some passages soar: "People are trapped in the sad slanting light washing over the country like ants in treacle." Although not a full-scale view of the New South Africa, this installment in Breytenbach's continuing portrait of self and land offers a multitude of piercing, if idiosyncratic, observations.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

South African poet and novelist Breytenbach (The Memory of Birds in Times of Revolution) presents an unusual memoir composed of seemingly unrelated sketches and memories. Returning to his homeland from France, where he has lived since being released from prison in 1982 (he had been sentenced as a member of the anti-apartheid African National Congress), Breytenbach goes to Bonnieville, his birthplace; the town and its environs trigger a flood of memories about his childhood, especially his connection to nature and the various people who inhabited his world. Making only a few tangential references to race, Breytenbach writes more as mystical lyricist than as a polemicist with an ax to grind. Beautifully written, if somewhat confusing; recommended for major college and public libraries.AAnthony O. Edmonds, Ball State Univ., Muncie, IN
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1st edition (August 25, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151004587
• ISBN-13: 978-0151004584
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,880,948 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a stunning memoir and meditation on South Africa, June 5, 2000

By 

bookluvver (Toronto,Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dog Heart: A Memoir (Hardcover)

This book is a worthy complement to Coetzee's Disgrace. Breytenbach is a writer and poet with a fine delicate sensibility. Not an easy read, the book is nonetheless fascinating, beautiful and horrifying in turn. He meditates on his childhood in the Boland area of the Cape, and the history of his Afrikaans speaking family in the area. He describes the brutality that happened in SA in the past and that happens in present day SA frankly and bluntly. He tells it how it is and and sometimes as I read it my blood just ran cold. He also describes the beauty of the country, the land and its animals, plants and trees, the night sky, the clouds etc. The subject matter is very interesting and the quality of his writing is superb. I have never read anything by this writer before and I was surprised by the brilliance of it. I found it very moving and profound. It is a stunning book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a stunning memoir and meditation on South Africa, June 5, 2000

By 

bookluvver (Toronto,Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dog Heart: A Memoir (Hardcover)

This book is a worthy complement to Coetzee's Disgrace. Breytenbach is a writer and poet with a fine delicate sensibility. Not an easy read, the book is nonetheless fascinating, beautiful and horrifying in turn. He meditates on his childhood in the Boland area of the Cape, and the history of his Afrikaans speaking family in the area. He describes the brutality that happened in SA in the past and that happens in present day SA frankly and bluntly. He tells it how it is and and sometimes as I read it my blood just ran cold. He also describes the beauty of the country, the land and its animals, plants and trees, the night sky, the clouds etc. The subject matter is very interesting and the quality of his writing is superb. I have never read anything by this writer before and I was surprised by the brilliance of it. I found it very moving and profound. It is a stunning book.