Skip to product information
1 of 1

Jacana

The Dancing and the Death on Lemon Street, by Denis Hirson

The Dancing and the Death on Lemon Street, by Denis Hirson

Regular price R 195.00 ZAR
Regular price Sale price R 195.00 ZAR
Sale Sold out
Taxes included.
Violence rendered things visible, writes Denis Hirson in this beautifully crafted, musical story, which is as much about seeing how people lived at that time as it is about desire, loneliness and the desperate, blind need for revenge. Lemon street runs downslope through a leafy, peaceful suburb of Johannesburg. It is early 1960. One resident of the street, a young widow, believes she has finally met the new man of her life. In a narrow room at the back of the garden, her maid impatiently awaits the arrival of her lover. Across the street, while his parents engage in yet another heated argument, a schoolboy dreams of a girl. And down past the willow trees at the bottom of the street this girl's mother prepares a party to celebrate her twentieth wedding anniversary, which will hardly turn out as she expected. Meanwhile, tremors run through South Africa. Hundreds of men die in the great Clydesdale mine disaster. There is an assassination attempt upon the Prime Minister, Dr Verwoerd. There is the Sharpeville Massacre, which will radically shape the political climate of the country, and permanently alter the lives of certain people on Lemon Street.
View full details
Colourful cubes that hold books at outdoor street library in Soweto

Give a book

Buy an extra copy of your book and we'll donate it to one of our outdoor Street Libraries, or to one of our reading programmes. Just add a note to your card with the code #buyabookforachild.