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    Playing in the Light: A Novel
    Playing in the Light: A Novel
    Playing in the Light: A Novel
    Ebook281 pages5 hours

    Playing in the Light: A Novel

    By Zoë Wicomb

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    “In her ambitious third novel, Wicomb explores South Africa’s history through a woman’s attempt to answer questions surrounding her past” (The New Yorker).
     
    Set in a beautifully rendered 1990s Cape Town, Windham Campbell Prize winner Zoë Wicomb’s celebrated novel revolves around Marion Campbell, who runs a travel agency but hates traveling, and who, in post-apartheid society, must negotiate the complexities of a knotty relationship with Brenda, her first black employee. As Alison McCulloch noted in the New York Times, “Wicomb deftly explores the ghastly soup of racism in all its unglory—denial, tradition, habit, stupidity, fear—and manages to do so without moralizing or becoming formulaic.”
     
    Caught in the narrow world of private interests and self-advancement, Marion eschews national politics until the Truth and Reconciliation Commission throws up information that brings into question not only her family’s past but her identity and her rightful place in contemporary South African society. “Stylistically nuanced and psychologically astute,” Playing in the Light is as powerful in its depiction of Marion’s personal journey as it is in its depiction of South Africa’s bizarre, brutal history (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).
     
    “Post-apartheid South Africa is indeed a new world . . . With this novel, Wicomb proves a keen guide.” —The New York Times
     
    “Delectable . . . Wicomb’s prose is as delightful and satisfying in its culmination as watching the sun set over the Atlantic Ocean.” —The Christian Science Monitor
     
    “[A] thoughtful, poetic novel.” —The Times (London)
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateOct 1, 2007
    ISBN9781595587411
    Playing in the Light: A Novel
    Author

    Zoë Wicomb

    Zoëml; Wicomb is a South African writer living in Glasgow, Scotland, where she is emeritus professor at the University of Strathclyde. She is the author of October, The One That Got Away, and Playing in the Light, all published by The New Press, as well as David's Story. She was an inaugural winner of the Windham Campbell Prize in fiction.

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    • 4/5
      "Playing in the light' is/was a South African expression equivalent to 'passing for white'. This happened very often when a light skinned "Coloured" person could re-invent themselves as a white person with all the benefits that being white conferred. Marion Campbell, the protagonist of the novel, is a young white business woman who has founded her own successful travel agency. Her mother, with whom she had had a rocky relationship, is dead and her elderly father lives alone in the family home where Marion keeps an eye on him, providing food, help and support. The book starts in 1990s SA, Apartheid has been toppled, the Truth and Reconciliation Hearings are slowly but surely uncovering the wrong-doings which occured since the Nationalist Party came into power at the end of WW2. The story jumps back to the early life of Marion's parents, how they moved from the countryside to Cape Town and the life they forged for themselves there; Marion, in the 1990s is beginning to realise that her family has secrets she didn't know, and that who she thought she was may not be true. Little by little she uncovers the skeletons in the family closet, and with some difficulty comes to discover who she actually is.From the aspect of 'playing in the light' it is a powerful description of the warped country SA became under the tyranny of the Afrikaanse government, and how it affected the entire population in so many subtle and not-so subtle ways. Having said that, although much of the writing is absolutely beautiful (describing the night sky in the city as being a 'brown marmalade' colour unlike the magnificent clarity of country skies), the story is very strung out, with episodes that sound autobiographical but which don't really move the plot forwards. Some of the characters are very real, but I found Marion a bit strange and enigmatic, couldn't even work out how old she was.There is a real sense of place in the novel, as Cape Town is portrayed so clearly, with the geographical proximity of living near or far from the mountain echoing the racial divides of society;The book badly needs a glossary as the author uses a lot of Afrikaans and also the Cape Coloured and Boer patois as well as SA English slang. With out knowledge of these, the reader misses out a great deal.

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    Playing in the Light - Zoë Wicomb

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