• Director(s):

    BOUZOU (JEAN-MARC), GIRI (Jean-Marc)

  • Producer(s):

    ARTE FRANCE, VEILLEUR DE NUIT PRODUCTION

  • Territories:

    Worldwide.

  • Production year:

    2011

  • Language(s):

    German, English, French

  • Rights:

    TV, DVD, NON-THEATRICAL, INTERNET, VOD

The committed portrait of a writer who is a symbol of the anti-apartheid struggle. Born in 1935 into an Afrikaans family supportive of racial segregation, André Brink rejected his family heritage and, through subversive novels, campaigned relentlessly in favor of the Rainbow Nation.

Once Nelson Mandela had become president, he said to Brink: "When I was in prison, you changed the way I viewed the world". André Brink is well known for his novel "A Dry White Season", which won France's Medicis foreign book prize in 1982.

But who is the man behind this powerful oeuvre, of which one or two novels very probably helped change the course of History? André Brink's life is interwoven with the history of South Africa, from the establishment of apartheid to the present day. His life was one of struggle. He lived an artist's life to the full - involving women, travel and important encounters, and a major part of post-1950 intellectual life. Albert Camus was his model and May 68, a determining experience.

With him, we explore the issues of how he managed to free himself from the conservative "Boer" values of his childhood, and how he resisted the temptation of a comfortable exile in Paris, returning instead to the lion's den, writing subversive novels.