Triomf [Hardcover]

Marlene van Niekerk (Author), Marlene van Niekerk (Author), The Overlook Press (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2, 2004

The white, working-class neighborhood of Triomf, a suburb of western Johannesburg erected over the rubble of Sophiatown, from which hundreds of black families were forcibly removed in the 1950s, is the setting for Marlene van Niekerk's internationally acclaimed, multi-layered novel of modern South Africa. Triomf shines a harrowing and vividly colorful, often hilarious, light on the lives and daily routines of a twisted family, illuminating through a wicked wit and sharp eye a crystalline vision of the hypocrisies and hopelessness of a society living under the burden of Apartheid.

Mol Benade, her brothers Treppie and Pop, and son Lambert live in a rotting government house, which is the only thing they have, other than decaying appliances that break as soon as they're fixed, remembrances of a happy past that never really existed, and each other-a Faulknerian bond of familial intimacy that ranges from sympathetic to cruel, heartfelt to violently incestuous. In the months preceding South Africa's first free election in 1994, a secret will come to light that threatens to disintegrate and alter the bonds between this deranged quartet forever.

As lyrical and acutely observed as Nadine Gordimer's The House Gun and as penetrating as J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace, Triomf's microcosmic view of South Africa on the brink of disintegration has been acclaimed as one of the best novels ever written in Afrikaans. It marks the arrival of an author of international stature.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

In the 1950s, at the height of apartheid, the government bulldozed the multiracial community of Sophiatown in Johannesburg, renamed it Triomf (Afrikaans for Triumph), and resettled it with whites only. This story is about one poor Afrikaans family living there in a house built on the rubble in 1993, on the eve of the democratic election. Ignorant, desperate, inbred for generations, they take care of each other, or try to. Lambert is epileptic. He wants a woman for his fortieth birthday, and Mom, Pop, and his older brother help him. The book is much too long, but the humor is dark, the mixed metaphors are hilarious, and the translation from the Afrikaans is spot-on, capturing the voice of the "white trash" family in all its coarseness and humanity. Everything stays the same. Only worse. You think you guess the family secrets, but they are beyond even that. Bones are broken. Everyone is crippled. But it's the enduring tenderness that tears you apart. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

'Darkly comic...has been hailed as a landmark. The novel is propelled by linguistic exuberance, robust, irreverent humour and self-parodic climaxes' GUARDIAN 'South Africa as you've never seen it: a tale of incest and white trash. Funny, feisty, ferociously clever. Read it.' - Gillian Slovo --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 582 pages
• Publisher: Overlook Hardcover (February 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585675008
• ISBN-13: 978-1585675005
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,050,702 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not for the Faint of Heart, October 10, 2005

By 

Alicia Jenkins - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Triomf (Hardcover)

Months after reading Triomf I can still close my eyes and like Dorothy clicking her heels, am quickly transported to heat, poverty, opressive depression and the sense of something really grimy nagging at the corners of my soul.

When someone chooses a book in order to visit another place I don't imagine this is the "where" many are after. The author - and translator - have managed a perfect journey, not very pretty, into the world of a South African version of poor white trash. The characters' lives are like the town they live in - built on destruction with God know what lying rotting under the surface. As I read I was almost desperate to find something, anything, to like about the characters. The few moments when that happened were rain in the desert. Sweet, relieving, and over very quickly.

This book is a slice of life written well enough to make it quite real. The question here is if you want to go where Marlene van Niekerk takes you.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars feeling ugly, August 4, 2005

By 

R. Ludbrook - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Triomf (Hardcover)

There is value in reading this book. It is a peek into a different world, but it was not worth the bad feelings that lingered every time I put the book down.

5.0 out of 5 stars Another step to understanding the reality of South Africa, September 22, 2009

By 

Frieslander (Bogota, D.C., Colombia) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Triomf (Paperback)

Van Niekerk creatively takes us into the sad reality of apartheid through the eyes of a poor white trash family from Johannesburg. I appreciated the dark humor used while portraying this dysfunctional family- ultimately the end result of almost 50 years of a government that didn't work.