SADNESS IN THE HOUSE OF LOVE: Farouk Asvat The blossoming love between Siddique and Wasiela in the midst of an uprising against the cruel regime is set against the bleakness and the beauty of the peninsula - the myriad characters reacting with humour and courage to the turmoil surrounding them. Against the backdrop of the ever-present mountain and the persistent south-easter, the novel is a portrait of a cosmopolitan city isolated from the world, of a happy-go-lucky community caught up in the throes of a revolt against oppression, of an extended family responding to the new challenges facing them, of the slowly developing love between the two protagonists getting entangled in the maelstrom - with devastating consequences. [] SADNESS IN THE HOUSE OF LOVE contents: 1. The Family Of Many Children In The Motherless Mother City (summer) 2. Days And Nights Full Of Fire And Love (autumn) 3. Sadness In The House Of Love (winter) 4. A Whirlwind Of Ashes (spring?) [] SADNESS IN THE HOUSE OF LOVE THE FAMILY OF MANY CHILDREN IN THE MOTHERLESS MOTHER CITY "They chase shadows," Fahdila said with measured contempt. Only Siddique, dreaming of the treacherous Atlantic eyes of Wasiela - the fairest virgin of the Cape - heard her. He looked at Fahdila's alabaster features across the supper table ... and said nothing. Her voice reverberated in his skull, flying among the colourful discord of budgies flying around in the rarefied air of the lounge, hovering about in the excited atmosphere of cousins and aunts gathered for the evening. From then on boisterous laughter took over, a carnival of delights in the festive atmosphere: ... [] FAROUK ASVAT was banned by the South African regime between 1973 and 1978; and nominated an Amnesty International "Prisoner of Conscience". He has received numerous death threats for his views and his writings. He won the Vita Literary Award for his anthology, A Celebration of Flames. He was awarded the Fulbright Scholarship to the University of California at Berkeley, and the EOC Scholarship to the Vrije Universiteit in the Netherlands. He was awarded the Kwanzaa Honors Certificate by the Africa Network in the United States; and his poem was selected to represent South Africa in the International Portland Review. His writings have been published in the United States, Canada, Brazil, Turkey, Switzerland, Netherlands, France, Germany, England & South Africa; and been translated into French, Dutch, Portuguese and Turkish. This is the first of a quartet of novels to be published.
About the Author: FAROUK ASVAT was banned by the South African regime between 1973 and 1978; and nominated an Amnesty International "Prisoner of Conscience" during this period. From 1971 to 1995 he received numerous death threats from both the right and left of the political spectrum for his views and writings. He won the Vita Literary Award for southern Africa for his anthology, A Celebration of Flames. He was awarded the Fulbright Scholarship to the University of California at Berkeley, for creative writing and post graduate work in English literature; and the EOC Scholarship to the Vrije Universiteit in the Netherlands. He was awarded the Kwanzaa Honors Certificate by the Africa Network in the United States for his contribution to Horses: Athlone. His poem, "Possibilities for a Man Hunted by SBs" was selected to represent South Africa in the International Portland Review. Farouk Asvat's writings have been published in: UNITED STATES: International Portland Review, Berkeley Poetry Review, Gar, Saasm News, Screens And Tasted Parallels; Processed World; Illuminations; Culture In Another South Africa; African Literature In The Eighties; WherePoetry24; Requiem magazine & ¡poetry! on Goodreads. CANADA: Descant. BRAZIL: Cadernos Do Terceiro Mundo. TURKEY: Contemporary South African Poetry Anthology. SWITZERLAND: Geneve-Afrique. NETHERLANDS: Vrije Azania, O Nag, Kom Gou, Bly Weg!; Zuid; and the poems from his anthology A Celebration of Flames, translated into Dutch as Een Feest Van Vlammen, are published on the blogspot: faroukasvat - poems. FRANCE: Notre Libraire; Europe: Afrique de Sud. GERMANY: Matatu; Awa-Finnaba; Englisch Amerikanische Studien; Dokumente Texte Und Tendenzen: South African Literature; Crisis and Conflict: essays on southern African literature; Sudafrika-Stipendienfonds; Perspectives 5: South Africa; South Africa: the privileged and the dispossessed. ENGLAND: Index on Censorship, The Race Today Review, Wasafiri; & SOUTH AFRICA. His poems have been translated into French, Dutch, Portuguese and Turkish. He has presented papers at the National English Literary Museum; the XIth Conference on Commonwealth Literature in Aachen and Liege, the 7th Third World and Radical Black Book Fair in London, the 2nd Bad Boll Conference on South African Literature in Germany, and at the University of California, Berkeley. He has been interviewed by BBC Book World, BBC Arts and Africa, BBC Topical Tapes, BBC London Calling & Deutsche Welle.