David Medalie

The widow of a Nationalist Prime Minister comes face to face with old adversaries at a luncheon hosted by the new President. An elderly woman finds that her last companion is the dog that used to belong to her husband's mistress. A Cape Town man makes a startling discovery about the owners of an antique store. A woman becomes convinced that a famous Hollywood actor is her biological father. The search for information about a famous writer leads a researcher to a platteland dorp. The mistress's dog is an exciting new collection by David Medalie, an writer of short stories. It includes two prizewinning stories: Recognition and The Mistress's Dog. Deft, subtle and nuanced, Medalie's stories show an accomplished and mature writer at his best. Their focus is the lived experience of people: ostensibly uneventful lives into which the unexpected erupts. They contemplate the reversals, ironies and coincidences of existence. They bring the characters - and the reader - to the brink of recognition.