Achmat Dangor

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...Bitter Fruit, by Achmat Dangor is shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2004. Achmat Dangor was born in South Africa in 1948 at the beginning of white apartheid rule, and being of African, Asian and Dutch ancestry, was considered ‘coloured’ and therefore dictated to about where to shop, eat, live, work under the apartheid regime until it ended in 1994, with a newly elected Black government. I understand Bitter Fruit to be his second novel, the first being Kafka’s Curse, written post apartheid. Prior to that he has written as early as 1982 in books entitled Voices from Within and Private Voices, along with other ‘coloured’ writers, before they were banned. Bitter Fruit is a work of fiction, but it is based on the 50 year life experience of the author in South Africa and no doubt his own personal experience. Bitter Fruit is set in around... Read review

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Advantages: Easy to read, beautifully written, good chapter length
Disadvantages: None

...and intrigue and of course the gay lifestyle of certain of his characters is a central theme. He then wrote The Folding Star in 1994. This was short listed for the Man Booker Prize and also won another literary award the James Tait Black Memorial. The Spell, was written in 1998. Then in 2004 The Line of Beauty won the Man Booker prize beating: ( Taken from The Man Booker Prize website) Achmat Dangor -Bitter Fruit Atlantic Books Sarah Hall -The Electric Michelangelo Faber & Faber David Mitchell -Cloud Atlas Sceptre Colm Tóibín -The Master Picador Gerard Woodward -I'll go to Bed at Noon Chatto & Windus Synopsis of plot ********************** If you dont have time to read any further then the main cut and thrust of The Line of Beauty is in the early 1980s a young gay man, Nick Guest, who has just left Oxford university becomes the lodger... Read review

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Advantages: characters, writing, plot
Disadvantages: not a novel everyone would love

...'The Line of Beauty' by Alan Hollinghurst won the Booker Prize in 2004, going up against novels by Achmat Dangor, Sarah Hall, David Mitchell, Colm Toibin and Gerard Woodward. Hollinghurst had written three novels previous to this one. The book follows the life of the main character, Nick, a young, gay man living with his university friend Toby's parents; who's father is an MP under Thatcher's government. The book is divided into three sections, each one detailing a different period of Nick's life. The book focuses closely on the relationships Nick forms with the people around him, whether they are friends or lovers. The reason I read this book was because I am doing a course on the Booker Prize winners at university this term, this was actually the first book I read from the reading list, and it set a very good tone for the rest... Read review

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