Dog Heart: A Memoir

by Breyten Breytenbach

Book Overview

Breyten Breytenbach's meditations are informed by a profound intelligence and wit and an overriding sense of the past. He is captivated by memories of the land that is no more, of the child he must... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0151004587
• ISBN13: 9780151004584
• Release Date: August 1999
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 8.2" x 5.6"

Customer Reviews

a stunning memoir and meditation on South Africa

This book is a worthy complement to Coetzee's Disgrace. Breytenbach is a writer and poet with a fine delicate sensibility. Not an easy read, the book is nonetheless fascinating, beautiful and horrifying in turn. He meditates on his childhood in the Boland area of the Cape, and the history of his Afrikaans speaking family in the area. He describes the brutality that happened in SA in the past and that happens in present day SA frankly and bluntly. He tells it how it is and and sometimes as I read it my blood just ran cold. He also describes the beauty of the country, the land and its animals, plants and trees, the night sky, the clouds etc. The subject matter is very interesting and the quality of his writing is superb. I have never read anything by this writer before and I was surprised by the brilliance of it. I found it very moving and profound. It is a stunning book.