Van Niekerk lands top prize
26/09/2007 09:39  - (SA)  

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Ugandan wins top literary award SA poet wins top award

Pretoria - Afrikaans literature's most prestigious recognition, the Hertzog Prize, will be awarded to author Marlene van Niekerk, the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns (South African Academy for Science and Arts) said on Tuesday.

The writer will receive her prize on Thursday night at a gala event at the University of Stellenbosch.

Her book Agaat deals with the relationship between a 67-year-old white woman in the terminal stages of ALS motor neuron disease and her coloured caretaker Agaat.

The novel has been described as dealing with the acute helplessness of the mute and completely paralysed patient, which makes extraordinary demands on her caretaker.

Agaat goes about her duties with a mixture of infinite tenderness, sadistic precision and a desperate and passionate undertow of anger about the past, as well as sadness of the anticipated loss of her "mistress".

- SAPA

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