Hope, Christopher

London. 1985. Heinemann. 1st British Edition. Very Good in Wrappers. 0434346616. 41 pages. paperback. keywords: Poetry South Africa . FROM THE PUBLISHER - Christopher Hope, the celebrated novelist, now gives us Englishmen, a single poem, divided into fourteen sections, which recounts the facts and fictions, often indistinguishable, of South African life in general and of its English settlers in particular. Englishmen centres on four characters; the mysterious colonial officials, Hogge and Owen, who really existed, though they remain utterly obscure; and the bizarre, turbanned huntress, Mrs Oribi, and her travelling companion, the gloomy cafE owner, Mr Silvero, who perhaps do not exist, though they may be found at every turn of South African history. Yet the current of that history has pushed them aside leaving them marginal people in search of an identity. Christopher Hope, winner of the 1985 Whitbread Award for Fiction with his novel Kruger's Alp, was born in Johannesburg in 1944. He published his first book of poems Cape Drives in 1974 for which he later received the Cholmondeley Award. His first novel, A Separate Development, banned for a period shortly after publication in South Africa in 1980, received the David Higham Prize for Fiction in 1981. A collection of short stories, Private Parts and Other Tales, published in 1982, won the International P.E. N. Silver Pen Award for that year. As well as a second collection of poems entitled In The Country of the Black Pig he has written two children's books, The King, The Cat and The Fiddle and The Dragon Wore Pink. inventory #10668 ISBN: 0434346616.