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  • Short listed for Commonwealth Writer's Prize Africa Best Book 2011
  • Longlisted for Sunday Times Literary Award for Fiction 2011
  • Selected for Exclusive Books HomeBru 2010

A novel set in Long Street, Cape Town.

Banquet at Brabazan is set in the heart of Cape Town’s violent inner city, offering a cornucopia of events featuring superb food, romance, a cappella, an angel, Shakespearean drama, reflections on South Africa’s war in Angola, drug-money, a muti murder, visions of the Afterlife and various works of fine art with flashbacks to A Time of Angels.

The novel is richly furnished with works of fine-art, poetry and magic, and is threaded through with philosophical questioning of war and the human condition.

At core, Banquet at Brabazan is the story of an enduring, secret love affair between a boss and his secretary who create a fantastical, theatrical, costumed, Italianate life for themselves within the confines of her apartment.

Outside of that contrived space, exists the real world of loneliness, xenophobia and crime that have come to mark post-apartheid South Africa.

The novel leads readers through both worlds, allowing the lives of a small group of people, who have not met before, to intersect over a period of ten days at Brabazan Bar & Lodge, where is revealed a poignant and beautiful patina of hope and love.

Editions:


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Paperback

Published by Jacana Media ISBN: 978-1-77009-807-7 288 pages
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Opening Lines:


“Oberon Yoruba had been living for a week at Brabazan Bar & Lodge in Long Street, two doors down from Clarke’s Bookshop, opposite Mr Pickwick’s Tavern and not far from the boarded-up Da Pasquale restaurant. He had booked into the first lodgings he’d come to and asked for a room with a view because he’d been told once, long ago, in an institution, if he remembered correctly, that a room should have a view. It didn’t bother him that this one brought with it the relentless noise of traffic and the truly horrible late-night cacophony of Long Street’s clubs…”

Dedication:


In memory of my brother, Pietro Arturo Schonstein (1949-2007).

Reviews:


“Patricia Schonstein is the Queen of Seduction.”
~ Philip Todres, Fine Music Radio, Cape Town
“A smorgasbord of local delights.”
~ Donald Paul, Cape Times
“In her fiction, people move between tragedy and joy. Her vision is life as theatre, at times playful, at times brutal, always compelling. Banquet at Brabazan is a dizzying ride of remarkable intensity.”
~ Margaret von Klemperer, The Witness
“In her previous A Time of Angels, I relished the sensual culinary dimension that was more fore-ground than background. Banquet at Brabazan retains the theme. All of her characters eat. Meals are described as graphically as the feelings and actions of characters … This lekker local author's popularity is deservedly growing.”
~ Victor Strugo, Saturday Star
“A rich tapestry … tender, funny, sad and extremely charming.”
~ Babalwa Shota, City Press
“Banquet at Brabazan is an absolute delight. It's like tasting sensational food for the first time; like an orchestra of sound that plays in your mouth; an explosion of emotion."
~ Sarah Blake, Kowie Radio
“Delightful.”
~ Tarryn Brien, The Big Issue
“A great novel with realistic settings and wonderfully complex characters.”
~ Folio Books
“Like the alluring sparkle of a gem that catches one's eye … textured and chiaroscuro-ed with colours, smells, decadent tastes and Shakespearian quotes … a startling mix of the familiar and the magical.”
~ Monique Broumels, The Cape Times
“Banquet at Brabazan left me feeling delighted and uncomfortable and sad and oddly uplifted… It's confusing and delicious and unsettling. The characters are beautiful and strange and awkwardly special. There are beautiful costumes, romantic paintings, beautiful light and music… It is a really, really strange and totally haunting read. I want to be in the movie.”
~ Megan Head, www.meganshead.co.za
“There are few books that leave you with a sense of wonder – almost disbelief – that a writer can create a tale so fantastic, so delightful, that one wishes that one could meet this person, just to say hello and congratulate her on her writing. Banquet at Brabazan left me with that feeling. It is a wonderfully constructed love story in which fantasy and reality are blended in a beautiful tale of poetic beauty… Written with great skill and understanding of the human condition. Highly recommended.”
~ Dries Brunt, The Citizen
“Patricia Schonstein’s acclaimed work is drenched in sensory delights, replete with complex characters and sublime settings. She contrasts heartfelt philosophical concerns with embroideries of life and art at its most luscious. For this unexpected balance of decadence and social concern, she has won an avid international audience for her six novels, the most recent, enticingly entitled Banquet at Brabazan.”
~ From Interview ‘Patricia & Proust’ BooksLive, Alex Smith 2011

Key Review Words:

Delightful. Magical. Remarkable