In Love's Place, by Etienne van Heerden

In Love's Place, by Etienne van Heerden. he Penguin Group (SA). Cape Town, South Africa 2013. ISBN 9780143538134 / ISBN 978-0-14-353813-4

In Love's Place, by Etienne van Heerden. he Penguin Group (SA). Cape Town, South Africa 2013. ISBN 9780143538134 / ISBN 978-0-14-353813-4

Etienne van Heerden's novel 'In Love's Place', translated from Afrikaans, here isintroduced by an excerpt from its first chapter 'The ratmobile'.

Etienne van Heerden  

A steep, wet night-wind courses across Johannesburg International. The plane shudders as it rises. Christian is thrust back against his seat by the planes speed. He loosens the elastic band binding his ponytail and shakes out his dark brown hair. Opposite him sits an air hostess, her safety belt secured. As the wind rocks the plane, her head tilts lazily from side to side against the backrest. Her eyes are fixed on the cabins ceiling. By now she's become used to evading the eyes of businessmen travelling to Cape Town on a Friday night. Christian loves the take-off. The sensation of man-made metal straining against the sheer resistance of nature fills him with melancholy. It gives him a sense of comfort: death as a fixed point. Some of the passengers around him sit with their eyes closed, apparently relaxed. But the little creases at the corners of their eyes betray anticipation and bated breath. Several of them sit anchored in the beam of their reading lights, the evening papers open before them, their eyes fixed on a single report. Christian looks out of his window. The airport slides away beneath the plane. Down there, below, the perpetually half-finished building works fall away. Brand-new arrival halls right next to patched-up old landing strips. Little buildings crouching alongside the grand gesture of an international airport being fitted out in a hurry for President Mbeki's African Renaissance. A troop of worn, pale red vehicles gather around a new fire engine as if they're waiting for the gallant sirens to lead them in a charge. Like all the worn-down carriers in this flight class, the Reebok is used for internal flights only. Rain hammers against the bodywork as it groans through a crosswind and leaps over a trough. Around Christian, the ageing technology becomes a point of discussion. Newspapers are shaken out and opened up. Eyes look expectantly at the hostess, why is it taking her so long to start pushing out the trolley? The city disappears beneath mist and rain. Christian sighs, inspects his nails. Cumulus has been swelling up over the city since about midday. Just before he left for the airport, the moisture came down in a thunderstorm that left the roads looking washed clean. Brake lights from lines of cars at traffic lights reflected upwards from a thin layer of glisten on the tar. The roads were just the way Christian liked them - treacherously smooth from the oil that drips out of Johannesburg's poorly maintained vehicles on dry weekdays; out of the engine blocks of minibuses; stolen cars with rebuilt engines and tinted windows; the struggling trucks that, to discourage hijackers, grind their way through the traffic without logos or any sign of their contents. Kwaito music thundering from the doors of minibuses. Taxi drivers using hooters like trumpets, shouting and whistling out of their windows at pedestrians who might still want a ride. The little buses threading their way recklessly through the traffic, determined to pull in as many fares as possible before the peak hour fades and flows over into night. [...]

This is an excerpt from the novel 'In Love's Place', by Etienne van Heerden.

Title: In Love's Place
Author: Etienne van Heerden
Translation: Leon de Kock
Genre: Novel
Publisher: The Penguin Group (SA)
Cape Town, South Africa 2013
ISBN 9780143538134 / ISBN 978-0-14-353813-4
Softcover, 15 x 23 cm, 457 pages

van Heerden, Etienne im Namibiana-Buchangebot

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