Roads to Barnato A SouthAfrican Collection edition by Arnon Hurwitz Literature Fiction eBooks
Download As PDF : Roads to Barnato A SouthAfrican Collection edition by Arnon Hurwitz Literature Fiction eBooks 
A collection of stories of many interlinked characters, set in a small village in the dramatic highlands of the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Stories of life, love, tragedy and redemption.
Roads to Barnato A SouthAfrican Collection edition by Arnon Hurwitz Literature Fiction eBooks
With his keen insights, sensitivity and observations of the human condition, Arnon Hurwitz paints a picture of poor rural life in South Africa post-apartheid. The book begins and ends with stories of a medicine man and timeless folklore. Inbetween are a series of interconnected imaginative and richly descriptive short stories highlighting the small triumphs and tribulations of everyday folks coping as best they can in a time of social change. Lingering racism, lack of economic opportunity driving the young to urban areas, the hopes and mischief of youth, the disillusionment of middle age and abandoned hopes. Universal themes for most places rural and poor but with a South African twist flowing from the author's personal history. It is not obvious at first how the stories interconnect, but be patient and read on and you will be rewarded.Product details
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Roads to Barnato A SouthAfrican Collection edition by Arnon Hurwitz Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews
First of all, Arnon Hurwitz, the author of Roads To Barnato, is a friend of mine. So, you may think that the following review will be biased with undue praise and, thus, critically unfair and not worthy of consideration. And you would be right, but only in part…because I do think that Arnon’s book is worth ‘a read’ and something you would find enriching. However, I also think that more objectivity would only support my opinion. So, what makes a good novel a good story, interesting characters, descriptive settings, believable dialogue…things like that, right? Well, Roads To Barnato has all of these attributes. Anyone who has lived long enough has met or heard stories of people with the usual and sometimes unusual personalities and life stories that underlie diversity within the citizenry. More is the surprise when one discovers that “the theatre” exists even (and just maybe, especially) in the small networks of rural towns that still no doubt survive in every nation…many times adventurous retirees, itinerant transients, escapees from various “situations”, and other such subcultural representatives pepper the so-called normal element of “townfolk” and traditional community icons like the town drunk, the town bully, and the town clown. Barnato and its sister villages reflect a lifesyle that exists not only on the edge with Mother Nature but also on the blurred edge between two basic sets of cultural values, one ancient and one more recently introduced…and so individual lives in these hamlets are interwoven in time and space with all of the sadness, insecurity, dysfunctionality, intolerance, meanness, infidelity, and misunderstanding one might imagine...on the other hand, there are touching moments when human virtue shines through. So, be prepared for the mundane meeting the magical and for the little bits of "ironic wisdom" that emerge from the caldron…the author is no doubt a good storyteller and teacher and one who has witnessed and understood the human condition.
BS”D
Arnon Hurwitz’s Roads to Barnato, offers a strangely magical glimpse into the life of a small, mountain-secluded town in the South-African bush, and the lives of its inhabitants and visitors.
Framed by the powerfully resonating yet barely delineated story of a man who abandons his deformed, infant seer of a son to embark on a mystical quest, these nominally interlocking stories skim lightly over human passions, conflicts and foibles (of both Blacks and Whites) like a small, flat stone skipping over deep waters. While the collection relates chronologically to the former Apartheid era of South Africa, a deeper apartheid is conveyed in the stark contrast between the Native Blacks, intimately at home with the land and each other, and the Whites, all somehow unsatisfied and misfit, each with his or her own disappointments and unfulfilled dreams.
Artfully, Hurwitz never tells us the reasons behind Dotty’s near-comical bitchiness, or why her husband still loves her despite years of unremitting abuse; Hattie’s illicit affair is furtively disclosed to the reader only in her evening visit ostensibly to her husband’s gravesite. Bella’s teenage despair is never elaborated, yet opens vistas of tragic conclusions or dramatic escapes. We are left only to speculate on a possible link between the two town suicides. The lightness of Hurwitz’s narrative touch recalls the nouvelle vague of classic French cinema, but his vision is clear there is a mystical bond between Africa and its native people, to which cultural intrusions are ephemeral, irrelevant and inconsequential. In the marriage of the beautiful and irrepressible servant-girl Nandi to her happy-go-lucky White playboy counterpart, there is a sense, too, in which, beneath the turmoil of human passion and conflict, the world is simply a pastime whose only true meaning is to be found in love, friendship and compassion.
The Road to Barnato can be read for enjoyment, but the effect of these stories is enduring. They are full of poetry, insight, and love for humanity in all its color and complexity.
Arnon Hurwitz is a gifted writer who transports the American reader half a world away, to a small South African village. There we meet a variety of individuals, young and old, black and white, poor and financially comfortable. Like any town, this one has its eccentrics, its troublemakers and its peacemakers. Each story stands alone, but the author has woven them together so the whole is gradually revealed, and the reader is rewarded for taking the time to get to know each of these fascinating and utterly believable characters.
With his keen insights, sensitivity and observations of the human condition, Arnon Hurwitz paints a picture of poor rural life in South Africa post-apartheid. The book begins and ends with stories of a medicine man and timeless folklore. Inbetween are a series of interconnected imaginative and richly descriptive short stories highlighting the small triumphs and tribulations of everyday folks coping as best they can in a time of social change. Lingering racism, lack of economic opportunity driving the young to urban areas, the hopes and mischief of youth, the disillusionment of middle age and abandoned hopes. Universal themes for most places rural and poor but with a South African twist flowing from the author's personal history. It is not obvious at first how the stories interconnect, but be patient and read on and you will be rewarded.
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