Amabookabooka: The Quarantine Chronicles - Michiel Heyns

Amabookabooka, the literary podcast produced by Jonathan Ancer and Dan Dewes, travels into the heart of the lockdown to bring you quick and quirky interviews with SA's finest authors via everyone's favourite isolation mode of communication, Zoom.

The subject of this episode of Amabookabooka is A Poor Season For Whales, which is not the title of a sports book about the Welsh rugby team’s miserable 1991 year when they were walloped 63-3 by the Wallabies. A Poor Season For Whales (with an H) is author, translator and English professor Michiel Heyns’ outstanding new novel.

The book has everything: vivid imagery, beautiful descriptions, fascinating characters, gripping dialogue, understated humour, an intriguing plot, a sharp knife hanging over it and a dassie-chasing Doberman named Benjy. (Michiel reveals why every one of his novels features a dog…)