Lem by P. J. Haasbroek

Lem (Signed & Inscribed First Edition in Dust Jacket)

A Violent Near-Future Afrikaans Novel of a Generals' Coup, Signed by the Author in July 1993

Bibliographic Specifications

• Title: Lem
• Author: P. J. Haasbroek
• Publisher: Human & Rousseau, Kaapstad Johannesburg
• Publication Date: 1993
• ISBN-13: 9780798130950
• ISBN-10: 0798130954
• Edition Details: First Edition (Eerste uitgawe). Title page signed by the author and dated Jul. 1993, with a further handwritten inscription on the front free endpaper.
• Binding: Publisher's green cloth boards with a printed, illustrated dust jacket. Cover illustration by Bertie du Plessis.
• Physical Format: Octavo-sized hardcover novel. No maps or plates.
• Language: Afrikaans

Official Condition Report

• The Book: Very Good Plus (VG+)
• Exterior / Boards: The green cloth boards are solid and show several small white, paint-like or spotted marks near the top of the front board. No obvious fraying is visible to the corners or edges.
• Interior: The text block is clean and tight, with cream paper and some gentle yellowing to the page edges. The endpapers are clean and no foxing is visible.
• Provenance: Title page signed by the author with a large signature dated 'Jul. 1993'. A further handwritten inscription on the front free endpaper reads: "My beste wense aan jou, Nico Mater! Piet".
• The Dust Jacket: Present. The illustrated jacket, with green spine and yellow lettering, is bright and clean across the front, spine and back, with minor edge wear at the head of the spine. The flap carrying the author's photograph and biography is intact. Protected in a durable archival-type plastic cover.

Synopsis & Historical Value

Published by Human & Rousseau in 1993, Lem is P. J. Haasbroek's first full-length novel, following his short stories and youth fiction. It is set in a near-future South Africa in which a group of white generals stage a coup. The title points both to violence and cruelty and to resilience and defence.

The jacket text opens on a man waiting tensely in the dark, alert like a predator, moving along the main road towards Mtunzini while expecting danger and violence. The tropical Natal setting and the uncompromising treatment of violence and sexuality link the novel to Haasbroek's earlier prose.

Haasbroek has said he wrote the book as a reaction to the military establishment after the death of his son in a parachute accident. This signed first edition, in its original dust jacket, will interest collectors of Afrikaans literature and of South African fiction from the final years of apartheid.

Author Profile: P. J. Haasbroek

Pieter Jacobus Haasbroek was born in Pretoria on 30 June 1943. He joined the University of Pretoria as a senior lecturer in 1976, completed his doctorate there in 1984 and became a full professor of economics in January 1985.

He is known chiefly for his short stories, first published in Standpunte and later in Donga and Tydskrif vir Letterkunde, and is regarded as a leading exponent of violence in Afrikaans prose and a forerunner of the grensverhaal. Lem was his first full-length novel.