The Long Silence of Mario Salviati

A book like "The Long Silence of Mario Salviati" suggests that there must be a number of very interesting novelists writing in Afrikaans. Etienne van Heerden has woven touches of magic realism into the appealing history of the town of Yearsonend, a dusty little nowhere town on the stony plains of the Karoo, making us realize that magic realism has not run out of steam, and that in the hands of some writers it still has the power to amaze and amuse.Word of an astonishing sculpture appearing the yard of a local eccentric brings art administrator Ingi Friedlander from Cape Town with the aim of acquiring the piece for South Africa's new parliament houses. She is surprised when its discoverer, an impish fellow named Jonty Jack Burgh, not only refuses to sell it, he won't even show it to her. Not one to give up easily, Ingi sticks around and becomes entranced by the strange tales swirling around the tiny town which involve, among other things, gold, a man entombed in a cave with four horses and a carriage, the decorative feather industry, and a deaf, mute, and blind former Italian prisoner of war named Mario Salviati. Ingi's poking around has the whole town on edge, including the local angel--a beaky fellow who spends most of his days picking at fleas on his wing feathers. The Yearsonenders see themselves as a closed-mouthed crew but in fact they are not, and Ingi collects a great deal of information. Might she be just be the person who has to release Yearsonend from its guilty trance? Or should she just run like hell and risk returning to Cape Town without the sculpture?We don't get to read much non-topical literature from South Africa, and this novel is an interesting slice of pre-and-post Apartheid 20th century. "Mario Salviati" is a charming, touching book , nicely written, well-translated, and different.