Kafka's Curse

First US edition. 12mo. Pp. [x], 225, [1]. Quarter-bound teal cloth over jade-coloured paper boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Jacket design by Marjorie Anderson with blurbs by Nadine Gordimer, Mike Nicol, and Ariel Dorfman. Character Family Tree. Glossary.

Originally published in World Literature Today, Vol. 70, No 1, Winter 1996, by the University of Oklahoma and as part of Kafka's Curse: A Novella & Three Other Stories, by Kwela Books, Cape Town, South Africa, in 1997. Winner of the 1998 Bosman Prize. South African writer's second short story collection and his first book to be published in the United States.

A modern re-interpretation of the Arabic legend of the gardener who loves a princess and, for his transgression, is transformed into a tree. Reset in South Africa as the apartheid era is finally collapsing under sustained attack from both within and outside the country. Author was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2004 for his novel Bitter Fruit and was a recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2015 South African Literary Awards. "A mesmerizing, mythical work." –Ariel Dorfman, author of Death and the Maiden