At Close of Day by Karel Schoeman

At Close of Day (First Edition in Illustrated Dust Jacket)

Karel Schoeman's Final Reflections on Ageing, Memory and the End of Life, Concluding His Autobiographical Series

Bibliographic Specifications

• Title: At Close of Day: Reflections
• Author: Karel Schoeman
• Editor: Danél Hanekom
• Publisher: Protea Book House, Pretoria
• Publication Date: 2018
• ISBN-13: 9781485309260
• Edition Details: First Edition, First Impression. Edited by Danél Hanekom.
• Binding: Publisher's red cloth boards with pale lettering to the front, in an illustrated dust jacket.
• Physical Format: Medium-sized hardcover, roughly octavo, slim volume. No maps or plates.
• Language: English

Official Condition Report

• The Book: Very Good Plus (VG+)
• Exterior / Boards: The red cloth boards carry pale lettering to the front. The spine and corners are clean, with no damage visible.
• Interior: The title and copyright pages are clean, with some show-through of the print from the reverse.
• The Dust Jacket: Present. The illustrated jacket shows a grey photograph of a landscape under cloud. The spine is intact, with slight rubbing or creasing at the top. A small clear patch, from tape or residue, sits at the top left of the front panel. The edges are a little worn. The back panel is plain brown and bears a retailer price sticker at the lower centre. The jacket is protected in a durable archival-type plastic cover.

Synopsis & Historical Value

At Close of Day: Reflections, published in Pretoria in 2018, is a collection of personal meditations on ageing, old age and the approach of death, interwoven with memories from the author's own life. It concludes Karel Schoeman's autobiographical series.

The book first appeared in Afrikaans and was translated into English by Elsa Silke. Reviewers have described it as a thoughtful, reflective work on ageing, disintegration and death, written with candour by one of South Africa's most singular literary figures.

Schoeman died in 2017, so this late volume has the weight of a final word from an author whose acclaim never quite translated into wide popularity. It will appeal to collectors of his work and to readers of South African literary memoir.

Author Profile: Karel Schoeman

Karel Schoeman (1939–2017) was born in Trompsburg and died in Bloemfontein. He worked as an archivist at the South African National Library in Cape Town until his retirement in 1998, and received the State President Award in 1999, one of only two writers to do so.

His output was prodigious, including some 19 collections of prose and around 46 non-fiction works. His novel Promised Land (1972) was the basis for a 2002 film. He wrote mainly in Afrikaans, though several of his non-fiction books were originally written in English.

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