K. Sello Duiker

(Johannesburg, 1974-2005) received in 2001 the Statebonds prize for the best African debut for his first book Thirteen Cents (2000). It is a powerful short novel about the seamy side of Capetown. Despair, uncertainty and survival instinct are the themes in a setting of prostitutes, gangsters and hunger - but including moments of hope and happyness. His second novel The Quiet Violence of Dreams (2003) is about a student that experiences an indentity crisis. In Duiker's work the individual insanity can never be seperated from the improbable country in which his stories take place. The book was translated and published in the Netherlands with the title Het Stille Geweld van Dromen .
WN 2005