The Wisdom of Water, by Wilma Stockenström

Wilma Stockenström received the Hertzog Prize for poetry in 1977 for Van vergetelheid en van glans and for prose in 1992 for her novel Abjater wat so lag. Her best-known novel is The Journey to the Baobab Tree (1981). It has been published in English (translated by J.M. Coetzee), French, Dutch, German, Hebrew and Italian. The Italian edition was awarded the Grinzane Cavour Prize in 1988. Wilma Stockenström has also had a successful career as an actress on stage and in film. She lives in Cape Town.

The translations for this first selection in English were done by well-known poet Johann de Lange and approved by the author. Tim Huisamen writes in his introduction that the opinion expressed by André Brink in 1984 (in a review of Wilma Stockenström's Monsterverse) has been amply borne out and still stands: "... Of the living, active poets in Afrikaans she is the greatest."

condition: excellent