My Beautiful Death, by Eben Venter

To get the hell out of here and make a life of my own somewhere else - with this despairing cry Konstant Wasserman leaves his country, his people and his culture. In Sydney this Afrikaans boy slips into a new way of life: a vegetarian diet, a crazy hairstyle, and an adventure with the sexually ambivalent Jude. With this 'dark horse of his, Konstant arrives at places where he'd only dreamed of going. But in the Wollondilly wilderness he discovers the first symptoms of a terminal disease. His via dolorosa now begins - with the realisation that he'd got the hell out of his country only to prepare for death. This stream-of-consciousness story of the South African diaspora is told in richly-layered language, and the reader is swept along until Konstant draws his very last breath.

Condition: excellent