Lettieviljoen INGRID WINTERBACH is niemand anders nie as die alombekende Lettie Viljoen wat nou die eerste keer onder haar eie naam skryf. Lesers van haar werke sal vir seker romans soos Klaaglied vir Koos en Karolina Ferreira onthou. Laasgenoemde roman is met die M-Net asook die Ou Mutualprys bekroon. Op die oog af lyk dit nie of daar 'n dramatiese rede is hoekom Ingrid besluit het om nou skielik na al die jare onder haar eie naam te publiseer nie. Daar is ook nie sprake van 'n paradigmaverskuiwing ten opsigte van die inhoudelike of die tematiese aspekte nie. Die werk volg juis die patroon van haar vorige werke. Diegene wat die eerste keer 'n boek van Winterbach/Viljoen lees sonder om eers 'n bietjie navorsing te doen mag uiters gefrustreerd raak met haar hortende skryfstyl meegebring deur 'n oorhoopse gebruik van hakies en aandagstrepe. [nld]
Klaaglied vir Koos by Lettie Viljoen Lettie Viljoen's first novel Klaaglied vir Koos [Lament for Koos] was published in 1984 during a time of increased militarisation and political repression by the South African government. The narrator in this short novel is a white woman whose husband unexpectedly leaves her and their four-year-old child to join in the armed struggle against apartheid. She angrily confronts the reader with these facts on the first page of the novel as she registers her fury at being left behind by her husband, declaring it to be the starting point of her narrative. (It is interesting to note that anger has been inspirational for more than one Afrikaans woman writer. A few years earlier the poet Antjie Krog declared in one of her poems: "Ek skryf omdat ek woedend is" ["I write because I am livid"] (1980: 23).) After spending time in hospital to recover from the shock caused by her husband's departure, the narrator slowly puts her life together again. After living through a nadir of emotional estrangement and inertia, she slowly comes to terms with her feelings of rejection and inadequacy, regaining her independence and the confidence to live her own life.
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