‘This is impressive, a story about birth, death, war and smouldering questions, told in a restrained,precise and, yes, even calm way. Janneke Siebelink can do it.’ – ARJAN PETERS

‘Ingrid Jonker is rightly regarded as “the South African Sylvia Plath”: beautiful poetry, intenseromances, a life cut too short, and a self-chosen death... For Jonker, all of this was intensified by theApartheid against which she fought with both words and actions, not sparing herself. Inspired by thatfateful struggle, Janneke Siebelink wrote a moving and captivating book.’ – TOM LANOYE

★Does the past define you, or do you define the past?

Cape Town, South Africa, 1989. 31-year-old Camille makes her yearly visit to the grave of her mother, the famous poet Astrid Viljoen. Camille is now the same age her mother was when she walked into the sea one winter morning and disappeared from her life. As the moment approaches that she will have lived longer than her mother did, she feels her presence more strongly than ever. Who was Astrid, and who has Camille become in her absence? Douglas, South Africa, 1933. Astrid is born in a small village on the Orange River. She grows up in a world of rules and rituals. As her life and the country change and tensions rise, Astrid seeks solace in language. She becomes a writer, marries, and has children, but she is increasingly entangled in loss, a longing for freedom, and the unrest of a divided country.
A Stray Summer Day is a gripping and inventive portrait of Ingrid Jonker, the iconic South African poet whose life was marked by brilliance, rebellion, and tragedy. Quoted by Nelson Mandela in 1994, Jonker became a symbol of resistance. This novel reinvents her legacy in a voice that is both urgent and unforgettable.

Janneke Siebelink (b. 1974)
Made her debut with her novel SOMETIMES IT SNOWS IN APRIL in 2022. A year later, she published WE’LL SKIP DECEMBER, in which she told of her touching and instructive encounters in a hospice where she cooks once a week.