One Tongue Singing

'One Tongue Singing' is a sensual, sinewy and intense first novel from a young South African writer which unfolds in two time frames.

In the first, a young unmarried French nurse comes to South Africa with her father and her small daughter during the closing years of apartheid. The family settles amongst a small wine-growing community in the Western Cape where they become involved in the lives of victims of the System.

In the second frame, the daughter, now about nineteen years old, is a talented artist who enrolls at the exclusive Art School of a womanising painter. The man, a narcissist, walks a tightrope between popular success and a deep-seated fear of failure; this has caused him to start suffering from anxiety attacks.

Through these characters 'One Tongue Singing' explores some of the different faces of power, both in the ways it operates between individuals and in societies. It is written with economy, humanity and a hard brilliance, and it announces a distinctive new voice from South Africa.