Penguin Random House and Bhala Writers invite you to the virtual launch of The History of Man by Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu.

Ndlovu won the 2019 Barry Ronge Fiction Prize for her previous novel The Theory of Flight.

There will be a short quiz at the end of the book launch, and the first person to send the right answer will win a free autographed copy of The History of Man!

Event details

Date: Tuesday 17 November 2020
Time: 18:00
Venue: Google Meet
Facebook event

For more details, please visit bhalawriters.com/booklaunch.

About the book

Emil Coetzee, a civil servant in his fifties, is washing blood off his hands when the ceasefire is announced.

Like everyone else, he feels unmoored by the end of the conflict. War had given him his sense of purpose, his identity.

But why has Emil’s life turned out so different from his parents’, who spent cheery Friday evenings flapping and flailing the Charleston or dancing the foxtrot? What happened to the Emil who used to wade through the singing elephant grass of the savannah, losing himself in it?

Prize-winning novelist Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu traces Emil’s life from boyhood to manhood – from his days at a privileged boarding school with the motto ‘It is here that boys become the men of history’, to his falling in love with the ever-elusive Marion, whose free-spirited nature has dire consequences for his heart – all the while showing how Emil becomes a man apart.

Set in a southern African country that is never named, this powerful tale of human fallibility – told with empathy, generosity and a light touch – is an excursion into the interiority of the coloniser.

Categories Africa Fiction South Africa

Tags Book events Book launches Penguin Random House SA Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu The History of Man Virtual book events Virtual book launches