Portrays the fate of a Dutch family that emigrated to South Africa in the fifties. The first person narrator is then nine years old. His mother dies not long after their arrival in a land torn apart by the ‘classical apartheid’, and his father starts a relationship with a younger woman. As well as a portrait of displacement in the African land, this novel is the history of an eye. The two different eyes of the young protagonist – the blind one, missing; and the eagerly observing one – give this moving story a distorted perspective, which gradually begins to stand for the split personality of the country.
‘Moenie Kyk Nie needed to be written exactly the way it is written, perfect to the smallest detail. That’s what makes it a dream debut.’ Elsbeth Etty
‘Your pen is as good as your brush.’ Adriaan van Dis
Podium reissued Van Woerden’s brilliant debut novel Moenie Kyk Nie in December 2000. Moenie Kyk Nie won the Geertjan Lubberhuizen Prize and was shortlisted for the Libris and together with Tikoes form a trilogy of which A Mouthful of Glass is the final part.
Sales
- Podium NL