Triomf, originally written and published in Afrikaans, immediately captured the public imagination and proved to be a runaway success.

It was awarded the CNA Literary Award and the M-Net Prize in 1995 as well as the Noma Award for African literature. It is available in an outstanding translation by South African poet Leon de Kock.

This is the story of the four inhabitants of 127 Martha Street in the white suburb of Triomf, built over the ruins of the old Sophiatown, once a vibrant and notorious centre of black city life in Johannesburg. Pop – the angel of peace teetering on the brink of the grave; Treppie – master of misrule and family metaphysician; Mol – the materfamilias in her eternal housecoat and Lambert – the misfit son of the household, are the central characters. Through their eyes the novel probes Afrikaner history and politics of the old South Africa, in order to reveal the bizarre and tragic effects of apartheid on the white lower classes who should have been its main beneficiaries.

Marlene van Niekerk was born in 1954 in the Caledon district in the Western Cape. She studied philosophy, languages and literature at the universities of Stellenbosch, Amsterdam and Witwatersrand. She is lecturer for the Department of Afrikaans and Netherlands at Wits. She is the author of two collections of poetry, Sprokkelster (1976) and Groenster (1983) and a collection of short stories, Die vrou wat haar verkykers vergeet het (1992), which has also been published in a Dutch translation (Arena, Amsterdam (1998). She is presently working on a new novel and a second collection of short stories. She lives in Johannesburg.