Plunder

Antjie Krog se nuutste bundel, "Mede-wete", verskyn agt jaar ná haar vorige werk. Sy ontwikkel voormalige temas en vernuwe sy, opnuut. Die bundel bevat 'n onrusbarende kwesbaarheid, 'n brandende woede en 'n direktheid, asook 'n hartverskeurende deernis met die ouerwordende self. In die openingsgedig skryf sy: "Dit kom nie meer op my af nie / die geluid/ die geluid van n gedig kom nie meer op my af nie." En dan, teenstrydig hiermee, sleur Krog die leser in die daaropvolgende verse mee in 'n jubelsang en ook 'n klaaglied van die land wat geplunder word, maar ook die self wat plunder. Krog probeer oplaas sin maak van die land, van die self, van die verlede.

Format: Unspecified
Length: 128 pages
Publication date: 04 October 2022
Publisher: Human & Rousseau (Pty) Ltd

Antjie Krog's latest collection of poetry was published eight years after Mede-wete. She develops former themes such as the landscape of the woman, marriage, the deterioration of the body, the joy of small family moments, but at the same time renews them, opens them up. There is an unstoppable vulnerability, a burning anger and a directness, and at the same time a heartbreaking compassion for the aging self. In the opening poem, she writes: "It doesn't come over me anymore / the sound / the sound of a poem doesn't come over me anymore." And then, in contrast to this, Krog drags the reader into the following verses with a jubilant song and also a lamentation of the land that is being plundered, but also the self that is being plundered. Krog tries to make sense of the land, of the self, of the past. As Alfred Schaffer says, there is simply no one in Afrikaans who writes like that. She shows what poetry can and should be. And how it can sound and resonate in Afrikaans.

Weight: 198g
Dimension: 153 x 234 x 13 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780798183178