Of Fathers and Fugitives

Daniël drifts between London and Cape Town, numb and detached. In five linked parts, the first four of which work as stories on their own, he first meets two Serbians, Jugo and Oliver, at an Agnes Martin show at Tate Modern, sleeps with them both and resists all they ask of him. In a sun-bleached Cape Town he nurses his dying father, a conservative man whose dementia lets the son tell him everything about his sex life. The will then sends Daniël to his cousin Theon, supposedly dying of cancer, on the Free State farm Eenzaamheid. Theon, recovered, now shares a house with the black farmworkers, and when one woman’s ten-year-old son, Motlale, falls gravely ill, the two cousins try to father him and take him to Japan for treatment.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

192 pages in the original

Genres

Family (assigned by AI)

Set in

United Kingdom, South Africa, Japan

First published

2023 by Human & Rousseau

Author's age

53 when first published

ISBN

9780798183949 (original)

9780798183963 (Human & Rousseau, South Africa)

9798889660392 (Europa Editions, United States)