In the Shadow of the Springs I Saw

Barbara Adair
Skip to product information

In the Shadow of the Springs I Saw

Barbara Adair
Release date:
Paperback
Regular price $29.50
Sale price $29.50 Regular price $0.00
Final Sale. No returns or exchanges.
Oversized: This item will be shipped by appointment through our delivery partner.
Overweight: This item will be shipped by appointment through our delivery partner.

Digital download

Immediate access in your Kobo library

Deliver to

Arrives on

Buy online, pick up at Bay & Floor

Free pick up today

Find it in store

Out of stock

Found in: FICTION, General Fiction

Earn 148 plum points and save more with plum Rewards. Learn more

View full details

Overview

180 PAGESENGLISH

Promotional Details
  • Published date: Jul 17, 2026
  • Language: English
  • No. of Pages: 180
  • Publisher: Catalyst Press
  • ISBN: 9781967673537
  • Dimensions: 5.83" W x 1.0" L x 9.06" H

Barbara Adair is an award winning writer. Her novel, In Tangier we Killed the Blue Parrot was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Fiction Award in 2004. Her novel End was shortlisted for Africa Regional Commonwealth Prize. She contributed to Queer Africa and Queer Africa 2, and her writing, particularly her travel writing, has been widely published in literary magazines and anthologies. In 2022 she received a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Pretoria.

“The writing tries to capture the ‘grain’ of a place, object or conversation, as if a swatch were cut from a larger fabric. One could trace the use of similar techniques back to the canonical modernist works of James Joyce, William Faulkner, John Dos Passos, William Carlos Williams or to a later experimenter like Burroughs … Adair uses these techniques with flair and purpose … the book’s method is to declare and contradict, to present one side and then another, keeping both present.” — IvanVladislavic

“This book is a magnificent showcase of what was, and what is becoming, of the historical journey that Springs is taking. The images captured in the book do not attempt to trace historical events per se but give one an overall sense of the stark arty architecture that continues to thrive amidst what seems to be chaos or the un-led communal revolution of the town itself.” — Colbert Mashile, Artist

“[this is] an ambitious text that comes together as a collage of different modalities of storytelling, from first and second person narration, to correspondence in the form of e mails, to poetry and songs excerpts and architectural definitions… the novel’s collage structure and its focus on themes of disintegration, transient beauty and changing landscape…. It ranges from nostalgic to matter of fact to playful and imaginative.” — Carolyn Ownbey, PhD Assistant Professor and Chair English, Communications, & Literature, Golden Gate University

“Adair reflects on issues with originality and aplomb, in an unusual literary style that emphasises fragmentation, intertextuality, historical palimpsest, multiple perspectives, stark shifts of subjectivity, elaborate repetitions, form and silence… as well as elaborate patterns and structures of the shifting and eroded Art Deco buildings. Within these buildings, ghostlike characters’ narrations, never connecting, haunt the work and briefly inhabit and shift the architecture of the text itself.” — Professor Bridget Grogan, University of Pretoria

Recently Viewed