The Fifth Mrs Brink is Karina M. Szczurek’s memoir of her life before, during and after her marriage to André P. Brink. Polish-born Karina was twenty-seven when she met the acclaimed writer, forty-two years her senior, and they spent a decade together.

Here she chronicles their relationship, from their first encounter in Vienna, Austria, and moving across continents to be with each other, to finding calm and stability in their married life in Cape Town, and finally facing the challenges of André’s deteriorating health in the last year of his life.

This soul-baring account is also the story of two interwoven writing lives, Karina’s burgeoning and André’s in its final phase. It is a diary of creative dissolution and knitting back together, a homage to a marriage tragically cut short but also to a love to last a lifetime.

How The Fifth Mrs Brink found a home at Jonathan Ball Publishers: “Stories with strawberry jam and clotted cream”

Woordfees 2017: “The Life and Times of the Final Mrs Brink”, interview with Ingrid Winterbach

CapeTalk interview with Sara-Jayne King, author of Killing Karoline: “Book Club”

Radio2Day interview with host Sue Grant-Marshall: “Reading Matters”

Classic FM interview with Tamara LePine-Williams: “Classic Lifestyle”

702 The Eusebius McKaiser Show, with Andrea van Wyk: “Literature Corner”

LitNet The Fifth Mrs Brink: An interview with Karina Szczurek by Naomi Meyer

More than a memoir, it is a study of grief: Michele Magwood talks to Karina Szczurek about her book The Fifth Mrs Brink

LindaReads: In conversation with Linda Kaoma

Review of The Fifth Mrs Brink by Izak de Vries: LitNet

The Fifth Mrs Brink – Interview by Lore Watterson: Creative Feel

Launch / event dates:

Tuesday, 8 August, 6.30pm: Launch of The Fifth Mrs Brink at Kalk Bay Books. I will be in conversation with Ann Donald.

Thursday, 17 August, 6pm: Launch of The Fifth Mrs Brink at Exclusive Books Brooklyn Mall. I will be in conversation with Efemia Chela.

Saturday, 19 August, Lowveld Book Festival: 15h00 – 15h45 | The Barnyard at Casterbridge | R50 | Book Now
Love, Loss and Literature: The fifth Mrs Brink, Karina M .Szczurek, in conversation with Arthur Sithole. The Fifth Mrs Brink tells the story of Karina M. Szczurek’s life before, during and after her marriage to André P. Brink. Polish-born Karina was twenty-seven when she met the acclaimed writer 40 years her senior, and they spent a decade together. Here she chronicles their relationship and finally facing the challenges of André’s deteriorating health in the last year of his life.

Wednesday, 30 August, Worcester:

6-10 September 2017: Open Book Festival

17 September 2017: Polish Association of Cape Town

26 September: Breytenbach Centre, Wellington, with Karin Schimke

30 September: ARTICULATE AFRICA ART & Book Fair at the Essence Festival in Durban

Saturday, 28 October, 9-9:45AM: I will be talking about The Fifth Mrs Brink at BookBedonnerd in the booktown of Richmond in the Karoo.