Triomf

The white, working-class neighborhood of Triomf, a suburb of western Johannesburg erected over the rubble of Sophiatown, from which hundreds of black families were forcibly removed in the 1950s, is the setting for Marlene van Niekerk's internationally acclaimed, multi-layered novel of modern South Africa. Triomf shines a harrowing and vividly colorful, often hilarious, light on the lives and daily routines of a twisted family, illuminating through a wicked wit and sharp eye a crystalline vision of the hypocrisies and hopelessness of a society living under the burden of Apartheid.

Mol Benade, her brothers Treppie and Pop, and son Lambert live in a rotting government house, which is the only thing they have, other than decaying appliances that break as soon as they're fixed, remembrances of a happy past that never really existed, and each other-a Faulknerian bond of familial intimacy that ranges from sympathetic to cruel, heartfelt to violently incestuous. In the months preceding South Africa's first free election in 1994, a secret will come to light that threatens to disintegrate and alter the bonds between this deranged quartet forever.

As lyrical and acutely observed as Nadine Gordimer's The House Gun and as penetrating as J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace, Triomf's microcosmic view of South Africa on the brink of disintegration has been acclaimed as one of the best novels ever written in Afrikaans. It marks the arrival of an author of international stature.


Genre: Literary Fiction