Thirteen Cents: A Novel

By K Sello Duiker and Shaun Viljoen

Every city has an unspoken side. Cape Town, between the picture postcard mountain and sea, has its own shadow: a place of dislocation and uncertainty, dependence and desperation, destruction and survival, gangsters, pimps, pedophiles, hunger, hope, and moments of happiness. Living in this shadow is Azure, a thirteen-year-old who makes his living on the streets, a black teenager sought out by white men, beholden to gang leaders but determined to create some measure of independence in this dangerous world. Thirteen Cents is an extraordinary and unsparing account of a coming of age in Cape Town.

Reminiscent of some of the greatest child narrators in literature, Azure’s voice will stay with the reader long after this short novel is finished. Based on personal experiences, Thirteen Cents is Duiker’s debut novel, originally published in 2000.

This first edition to be published outside South Africa includes an introduction by Shaun Viljoen and a special glossary of South African words and phrases from the text translated into English.

Shaun Viljoen is a Professor in the English Department at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, and the author of a forthcoming biography of the writer Richard Rive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ohio University Press
• Release date: Apr 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9780821444542

K Sello Duiker

K. Sello Duiker was born in 1974 and grew up in Soweto and, later, East London. After graduating from Rhodes with majors in Journalism and Art History, he moved to Cape Town, and it is here that he found his writing voice. His first novel, Thirteen Cents, was awarded the 2001 Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for Best First Book, Africa Region. Published the same year, The Quiet Violence of Dreams, was awarded the 2001 Herman Charles Bosman Prize for English Literature. Sello always said that his mother, an insatiable reader, inspired his decision to become a writer. Sello passed away on 19 January 2005. His work has been published in the US, Italy, France, Norway, Egypt, Holland, Germany and Nigeria.

Reviews for Thirteen Cents

[tinwara · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A weird novel that changes from a very realistic beginning towards a surreal ending. Personally I didn't like the way the book changed, perhaps because I felt I lost grip on the story.The story centres around Azure, an orphaned streetchild from Cape Town. The boy manages to stay alive by living according to his own strict rules and by going home with homosexual men. It's a rough and sad lifestory. At some stage Azure is confronted by a powerful street gangster who beats him up and abuses him in a terrible way. After that the story changes into a surrealistic tale in which Azure feels he is getting stronger, loses all what was left of his faith in mankind, climbs the Table mountain, has strange mythical dreams and dances in caves and nothing is the same any more. The story just gets weirder and weirder. Perhaps you could say it changes from a novel into a poem. It is beautiful in a way, yet not completely satisfying.