Description:
South African poet Achmat Dangor's first novel is a rich blend of fairy tale and reality. At the heart of Kafka's Curse lies an Arab myth about a gardener who dared to love a princess and was turned into a tree for his presumption. A similar fate seems to have befallen Oscar Kahn, a Jewish South African architect. Abandoned by his wife after contracting a mysterious malady, he dies alone and his body is undiscovered for many months. By the time the neighbors call the police, "there wasn't much left of the body to bury. It was as if it had crumbled to dust." In the bedroom where Oscar breathed his last, a tree has sprouted up through the floor. But the riddle of this man's death is superceded by the secrets of his life: born Omar Kahn, he was, in fact, an Indian Muslim, not a white Jew. In the days of apartheid, these things mattered and Omar/Oscar, who had the temerity to disguise his ethnicity and to marry a white woman, had apparently paid the price for his subterfuge. Omar's secret may be shocking to his friends and family, but his is by no means the only one. His wife, his nephew, his brother, even his therapist, all have things they'd prefer to keep hidden--but like pulling a loose thread on a very old and fragile seam, the revelation of Omar's past begins an unraveling of secrets and lies going back generations, with tragic results. Dangor tells his story with economy and grace, offering up love, madness, and betrayal in language as lovely as the themes are grim. --Alix Wilber
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