Foxtrot van die vleiseters by Eben Venter

Foxtrot van die vleiseters (Debut Novel, Eerste Uitgawe 1993)

Eben Venter's Prizewinning Satirical Farm Novel of the Last Days of Old South Africa

Bibliographic Specifications

• Title: Foxtrot van die vleiseters
• Author: Eben Venter
• Publisher: Tafelberg, Kaapstad
• Publication Date: 1993
• ISBN-13: 9780624032052
• ISBN-10: 0624032051
• Edition Details: Eerste uitgawe (First Edition), 1993.
• Binding: Publisher's illustrated paperback wrappers, perfect bound, with a colour cover painting, 'The bawdy wind', by Kate Gottgens.
• Physical Format: Appears to be a Large Softcover (Trade Paperback) format. 272 pages.
• Language: Afrikaans

Official Condition Report

• The Book: Very Good (VG)
• Exterior / Wraps: Yellow printed wrappers with red and black lettering and a colour painting on the front. The front cover is bright with no obvious marks, apart from a slight bump or lift at the top right corner. The spine is clean and straight, with no creasing or loss of lettering. The back cover is clean. Some toning to the fore-edge.
• Interior: The binding is tight and the book opens flat. The title page is lightly toned and the page edges are yellowed. The text pages are clean, with no markings, tears or stains.
• The Dust Jacket: Not Applicable (As Issued)

Synopsis & Historical Value

Foxtrot van die vleiseters ("Foxtrot of the Meat-Eaters") was published by Tafelberg in Cape Town in 1993 and was Eben Venter's debut novel. It is set on the farm Wildeperdehoek in the Eastern Cape and follows the Steenekamp family alongside the Xhosa family who live and work there. Part of the story is told through the writings of young Petrus Steenekamp in his room, and the book moves between the grim, the comic and the moving. Its settings include Johannesburg, Chile and a general of the South African Defence Force.

Read as a farewell party for the old order, the novel portrays the last days of apartheid South Africa. Scholars see it as a 1990s Afrikaans farm novel that unsettles the traditional plaasroman as the country moved towards democracy. It is also read as an anti-apartheid satire on the institutions apartheid left behind. Venter has said it draws partly on family life and his father's storytelling.

The book won the W.A. Hofmeyr Prize in 1994 and was later translated into German as Burenfoxtrott (1996) and into Dutch as Dans aan het einde van die dag (2002). It is a good copy of an important title in late-apartheid Afrikaans fiction.

Author Profile: Eben Venter

Eben Venter was born in Burgersdorp in 1954 and raised on a sheep farm in the Eastern Cape. He holds an MA from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and emigrated to Australia in 1986. His short-story debut, Witblitz, appeared in 1986, and Foxtrot van die vleiseters (1993) was his first novel.

His other works include Ek stamel, ek sterwe (1996), Horrelpoot (2006, published in English as Trencherman in 2008) and Wolf, Wolf (2015). He has won the W.A. Hofmeyr Prize several times, and his work has been translated into English, Dutch and German.