YOU ARE INVITED to the launch of Remembering Roy Campbell: The Memoirs of his Daughters Anna and Tess, edited by Judith Coullie.
Guest speaker: Prof. Michael Chapman
Venue: Seabrookes Coffee Shop, Durban High School, Berea
Date: WEDNESDAY 10 AUGUST 2011, 6pm
RSVP: cedric@adamsbooks.co.za or 082 873 2702
“Roy Campbell was a great poet but he was also a great man, in the sense that he was larger than life. Finding oneself in his company is to find oneself intoxicated with the pure pleasure of his presence. One would like to meet him in the flesh, perhaps in that tavern at the world’s end that Chesterton mentions, in which we will meet “Dickens and all his characters”. In the absence of such a celestial rendezvous, this journey through Campbell’s life in the terrestrial presence of his daughters is pleasure enough.”
Joseph Pearce, author of Bloomsbury and Beyond: The Friends and Enemies of Roy Campbell
“Campbell’s daughters have the huge advantage of having grown up with him and having the partial but intense knowledge that a child has of a loved parent. Their accounts are unique and irreplaceable. The two narratives function well together, shedding more light on Campbell’s life than either would do on its own. Remembering Roy Campbell makes a significant contribution to understanding South Africa’s best-known poet.”
Peter F. Alexander, author of Roy Campbell: A Critical Biography
“The editor’s introduction to the two memoirs serves as a further corrective to erroneous assumptions about Campbell’s life and poetry and offers a balanced assessment of the reliability, intentions – and in Anna Campbell’s case – the partisanship of the memoirs of his daughters.”
Michael Hanke, author of Roy Campbell, Ein Solitar: Interpretationen Seiner Versdichtung
