The letters writer André Brink and poet Ingrid Jonker wrote to one another during their love affair in the early 1960s will be published by Umuzi in November. Brink, who died on 6 February 2015, was working on a novel titled Goudstof at the time of his death. He offered the correspondence between him and Jonker to Umuzi for publication three months before his death.
Jonker’s original letters, together with copies of the letters Brink addressed to her, were kept in brown envelopes in the author’s study for over fifty years. Among the documents are telegrams and early versions of Jonker’s poems. The documents will in future be made available to researchers. Literary critic and widow of André Brink, Karina Brink, arranged the letters in chronological order before scanning them, after which they were typed up by Erika Viljoen, a friend and former student of the author. Book historian and editor of the journal LitNet Akademies (Geesteswetenskappe) Francis Galloway proofread the typed documents against the original texts and provided contextual support for the Umuzi publication. The letters will not be edited or annotated.
Leon de Kock – author, academic and award-winning translator – is responsible for translating Brink’s letters into English, while journalist and poet Karin Schimke, a past winner of the Ingrid Jonker Prize for poetry, translated Jonker’s letters. The publication includes an introduction by Willie Burger, professor of literature at the University of Pretoria.
Reprint rights for material protected by copyright were granted by Karina Brink and Greg Marsh on behalf of the Ingrid Jonker Trust respectively. Author royalties for the publication will be divided equally between Brink’s estate and the Ingrid Jonker Trust.
A limited and numbered edition in English and in Afrikaans will also be published.
For more information, contact publicity officer Ryno Posthumus: RPosthumus@penguinrandomhouse.co.za / 011 327-3550