The award-winning poet and writer Prof Ken Barris has released his fifth novel- Life Underwater.
The fiction novel tells the story of the three Machabeus brothers - Jude, Simon and Eli, tracing their childhood year’s right up to adulthood.
Set in Port Elizabeth in the sixties, the novel focuses on the family dynamics rather than on the broad political framework, says Prof Barris.
The Language Coordinator for the Faculty of Engineering, Prof Barris, started the novel back in 2007 during a three week writer’s residency in Switzerland.
“I wrote a third of the novel during that time. It took three years to the write the rest,” he says.
With several collections of poetry and short stories also published, Prof Barris says his interest in people and curiosity of what makes them tick inspires his writing.
And there is no stopping Prof Barris, who is currently co-authoring a novel with award winning writer Mike Cope, which will be released at the end of this year.
To date this CPUT academic’s writing has earned him top accolades, including the M-Net Book Prize, the Ingrid Jonker Prize, the Thomas Pringle and the Vita Award. He has also been nominated and shortlisted for a number of other top literary prizes.
To purchase a copy of the novel go to your local bookstore.
By Candes Keating
Written by CPUT News
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