Trade Paperback, 184 pages RRP: R135, ISBN 1-4152-0011-4 Publication date: June 2006, Category: Fiction Description Louis Greenberg’s debut novel recounts the stories of seven characters from Melville, a suburb of Johannesburg. It starts and ends with a seemingly ordinary moment when they are all in the same place. Singly or jointly, we follow the characters to the remote Karoo, to London, to Greece; into city households, friendships, sexual and emotional entanglements. The novel introduces us to Hugh Epstein, a science lecturer setting up a gigantic “macrochip” for public display. To his daughter, Tania, on her way with a group of school friends, among them a boy named Lyon, to perform their singular rituals on the Melville Koppies. To Shane and Renée, two artist friends, who observe the group as they pass the neglected garden of a reclusive Greek immigrant. To Aden, an embittered friend of Shane and Renée, moping at another table in the same restaurant. All are carriers of signs … like the beggars at suburban intersections, asking for someone to see us, to see how we are all connected. From The Beggars’ Signwriters, p 165 “Renée’s skin is like burnished brass, treacle, toffee, sweet freckled creamy, South African brown sugar. She’s soaked up Johannesburg’s winter sun like a sponge and the colour of the light is gold and it seeps from her pores and shines back on this spring day. She’s been back home a year already, but after that time in Britain, she doesn’t think she’ll ever take the sun for granted. She worships the sun like an escaped prisoner. Her bones are gradually rebuilding themselves from the brittle, neurotic ghosts they’d become. She and her bellyful of growing baby are strolling towards the koppies with the folderful of photos, her previous offspring, she supposes. When she showed the photos to Lyon the other day, she deliberately hid the ones featuring Aden. It wasn’t out of shame, she thinks, that she hid them, but more because Aden is no longer relevant to her. She doesn’t want to carry him through to this new part of her life. He has no place here. So she’s finally decided to burn them all. All the pictures with Aden. They’ve done their work. Call it a symbolic gesture. Call it a birthday treat. Besides, she’s replaced Aden now with another man precisely to her liking. The endless patterns roll on and on ...” ... a mature and sensitive work of fiction, artfully understated and frequently inspired … The fragile, fluctuating human ego is captured with subtlety and skill. At its very best, The Beggars’ Signwriters is as good as anything I have read in manuscript form. - From the reader’s report on The Beggars’ Signwriters Greenberg has written a novel which reminded me of how soothing good writing can be. His characters are drawn with a gentle perception and his ability to translate female thoughts is especially remarkable. - Janet van Eeden, The Witness Selected as one of Barry Ronge’s favourite books of the season in Books & Leisure, November 2006. Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize 2007, Best First Book (Africa region). Shortlisted for the 2007 University of Johannesburg Prize for the best creative debut work in English. Read the Rapport review of 30 July 2006 by Salome Snyman. Read the Bookmark review on artslink.co.za by William Pretorius. Read The Citizen’s review of 22 September 2006 by Bruce Dennill. Read the Beeld review of 2 October 2006 by Marius Crous. E-mail us a comment on this book. (Comments may be edited and used on this website.) To buy this book www.exclusivebooks.com www.kalahari.net home   writers   books   contact   buy   rights all content © Umuzi, Random House Struik this website designed and maintained by Guanaco.co.za