Instant in the Wind [Kindle Edition]

Andre Brink (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

The year is 1749, when the Boers ruled South Africa. And so it has come to his Baas-s final command to his Hottentot slave Adam, to flog his mother, because she refuses to prune the master-s vineyard in order to attend her own beloved mother-s funeral. And when he refuses to do so, and his Baas smashes his face with a piece of wood, Adam turns on him, and beats him almost to death. Then he flees to South Africa-s veld. There he comes to the rescue of Elizabeth, a white woman, and the only person to survive her husband-s expedition in the vast South African interior. Alone and terrified, she pleads with the runaway slave to bring her back to the Cape and her home. Adam agrees because he believes by rescuing Elizabeth, he will be awarded his own freedom. This, then is the stunning story of their trek together, how they find in each other their mutual need and humanity, and finally how their days together turn into an unforgettable, tender love story. Shortlisted for the 1976 Booker Prize

From the Back Cover

&“Brink writes feelingly of South Africa-the land, the black, the white, the terrible beauty and tragedy that lies therein.&” -Publishers Weekly&
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Shortlisted for the Booker Prize?&
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An Instant in the Wind is the passionate story of an escaped slave and a white woman lost in the African wilderness, and the unexpected love that flowers between them.&
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&“Brink describes &‘calamities and absurdities of the apartheid system with a cold lucidity that in no way interferes with high emotion and daring flights of the imagination.&’&”&
-Mario Vargas Llosa, New York Times Book Review&
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&“It is difficult to see how any South African novelist will be able to surpass the honesty of this novel or the real courage-both as artist and as [a] political man-which enabled Brink to write it.&”&
-World Literature Today&
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&“André Brink has gained a reputation in this country and in his native South Africa as a novelist unafraid to tackle the controversial subjects of mixed-race love affairs and marriages, of the injustices of apartheid, or racism in all its myriad forms.&”&
-Book World&
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&“The subject is important and the novelistic achievement impressive.&”&
-Library Journal&
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&“Tales of upper class women and primitive men combating the wilderness are nothing new. But I know of no other as honest, as beautifully told or as sad as this one.&”&
-Sunday Plain Dealer&
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&“An Instant in the Wind stands with the best of Alan Paton.&”&
-Cleveland Plain Dealer&
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André Brink is one of South Africa&’s most eminent novelists. He is the author of seventeen works of fiction, has been twice shortlisted for the Booker Prize and is an outspoken recorder of South Africa&’s turbulent history, from the days of apartheid to the present.&

Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 606 KB
• Print Length: 291 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1402211090
• Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark (February 1, 2008)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0023ZLLV2
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #248,580 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pure purple pleasure, November 6, 2000

By 

hugh riminton - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Instant in the Wind (Paperback)

What is it that makes South African authors incapable of happy endings?

Having read and enjoyed JM Coetzee's bleak "Disgrace" I found Brink's novel in a second hand shop and went to work. In subject matter it is a blending of two Patrick White novels - "Voss" about a doomed journey to the (Australian) interior, and "A Fringe of Leaves" about a white woman's life among Aborigines after a 19th Century shipwreck.

In Brink's hands, in 1750, a naive but spirited white woman from the Cape accompanies her Swedish explorer husband into the upmapped interior, only to find herself alone when the husband dies and the Hottentot retainers head for the hills.

She is found by a runaway slave, Adam, who for reasons of his own agrees to set off with her to the Cape.

Brink vividly describes the country through which they must travel. Against its physical presence, the couple become lovers. All of this is good fun. Brink was writing at a time when black/white relationships were forbidden under apartheid law. Indeed, the book for a while was banned. He delivers us a vintage love story, full of sex and spirit. (Funny how Coetzee, 25 years later when inter-racial sex is no longer verboten, sees the politics of such relationships in an entirely different way).

As Brink signals in the opening pages, however, there is no happy-ever-after. If there had been (the story purports to be based on truth), South Africa's history might have been different.

At times, the writing has less to do with black and white than purple, especially as Brink creates a seaside idyll for his pair, but for my money it's a grand read. It recalls a time when white South African liberals believed if only people could see their true nature everything would be all right.

Coetzee's darker - and more recent - version is that WHEN people are most true to their nature, South Africans have much to fear.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poetic, lyrical, September 16, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Instant in the Wind (Hardcover)

A wonderful read. A powerfully written love story between a slave and a white woman in 18th century South Africa. The South African landscape is revealed in all it's harshness and beauty. The story of the two characters are based on fact which makes the story even more phenomenal. A masterpiece.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A disappointing novel, May 20, 2000

By 

Carlos R. Lugo-Ortiz - See all my reviews

This review is from: Instant in the Wind (Hardcover)

I expected this novel to be engaging not only because it was by Andre Brink, one of the most celebrated South African writers, but because it was also shortlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize. However, I was deeply disappointed with this chronicle of the relationship between a white woman and a runaway slave because it becomes, almost right from the beginning, cliched, repetitive, and affected.

'An instant in the wind' is a novel of exploration at two levels. On the one hand, it explores the beautifully cruel South African landscape between the Great Fish River and Table Mountain, passing through the Tsitsikama region and the Karoo Desert; on the other, it intends to explore the psychology between blacks and whites and men and women in the South Africa of the mid-1700s--and, by extension, of 'apartheid' South Africa. Brink's thesis appears (and I emphasize that word, appears) to be that only extreme situtations bring people together, making us forget our racial and sexual differences. However, nothing really illuminating is said, and the very ending is extremely ambiguous, causing one to wonder if Brink did't play a trick on the reader with respect to the intentions of the female character. If he did (and I'm inclined to believe that he did), then the ultimate message of the novel is extremely nihilistic.

Is there anything redeeming in this novel? I found the descriptions of nature superb. The Tsitsikama and Karoo truly come to life the way Brink describes them, and Table Mountain becomes truly magnificent. This background, perhaps, makes the novel worth reading.