Herman Charles Bosman (1905–1951)
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Fotografie: Herman Charles Bosman
Werken van Herman Charles Bosman
Idle Talk: Voorkamer - the Anniversary Edition: Part 1 (The anniversary edition of Herman Charles Bosman) (1920) 11 exemplaren
"Seed-time and Harvest" and Other Stories (The anniversary edition of Herman Charles Bosman) (2001) 6 exemplaren
The Complete Voorkammer Stories 1 exemplaar
Complete Oom Schalk Lourens Stories 1 exemplaar
The Collected Works: volume 1 1 exemplaar
A CASK OF JERIPIGO: sketches and essays 1 exemplaar
The Prose Juvenilia 1 exemplaar
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Tagged
Algemene kennis
- Geboortedatum
- 1905-02-03
- Overlijdensdatum
- 1951-10-14
- Graflocatie
- West Park Cemetery, Johannesburg, South Africa
- Geslacht
- male
- Nationaliteit
- South Africa
- Geboorteplaats
- Kuilsrivier, South Africa
- Plaats van overlijden
- Johannesburg, South Africa
- Woonplaatsen
- Johannesburg, South Africa
London, England, UK - Opleiding
- Jeppe High School for Boys, Kensington, Johannesburg, South Africa
University of the Witwatersrand - Beroepen
- schoolmaster
convict
journalist
short story writer
Leden
Besprekingen
Lijsten
Misschien vindt je deze ook leuk
Gerelateerde auteurs
Statistieken
- Werken
- 46
- Ook door
- 1
- Leden
- 566
- Populariteit
- #44,192
- Waardering
- 3.9
- Besprekingen
- 7
- ISBNs
- 84
- Talen
- 4
- Favoriet
- 1
Cold stone jug, written nearly twenty years later, when he was a successful journalist and short-story writer, is his prison memoir. It's written with his characteristic dry humour, but it's often indirectly very moving when he talks about the psychological effects on himself and others of being locked up, and the damaging social effects of the "indefinite sentence" system that put offenders into a vicious circle of ever-increasing periods of imprisonment it was almost impossible to break out of. And there's lots of fascinating period detail about the way the prison is organised, the social hierarchy, the sometimes surprisingly subtle acts of resistance or protest, and some great thumbnail stories from the lives of his fellow prisoners, artfully chopped about and left incomplete to reflect the fragmented nature of opportunities to talk to other prisoners.
One thing that struck me is that this is a book set in an all-white fragment of South African society: black people only appear very peripherally — in an opening scene, Bosman is in a basement holding cell at the police station, and the prisoners can see the legs of passers-by, "mostly natives"; later on he mentions that the bodies of men who have died in the prison are collected by a pair of "kaffir prisoners", presumably from a different nearby prison. And that's it: the prisoners are white, the guards are white, and Bosman never sees anyone else.
Bosman doesn't draw a veil over the less palatable sides of prison life: the casual brutality, the culture of dagga smoking, and so on. He describes being disgusted when he realised that another prisoner had fallen in love with him and kept sending him sentimental notes (but points out that he was still very young: by the time of writing, he's overcome his prejudices and some of his best friends are gay or lesbian...). When another prisoner, a disgraced schoolteacher, tells him in graphic detail about the twelve-year-old girl he'd had sex with, Bosman admits that he started having fantasies about young girls himself. Again, he points out that he was very young and had had little chance for sexual experimentation before being locked up, but it's still rather creepy. I don't suppose a modern writer would get away with that kind of honesty.
So, definitely comes with some caveats, but still a fascinating book.… (meer)