Looking on Darkness

André Brink · 1935–2015 · South Africa

Originally Kennis van die Aand (Afrikaans) · translated by André Brink

Why it matters

A mixed-race actor awaits execution and narrates, backward through his own life, an interracial love affair that apartheid's laws made a capital crime. The first Afrikaans novel banned outright by its own government: Brink's line in the sand.

At a glance

A death-row confession narrated in reverse chronology builds dread through structure as much as plot.