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Errol Lincoln Uys

a writer's website

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 BRAZIL |   RIDING THE RAILS  BOXCAR KIDS A NOVEL OF AMERICA  MICHENER'S SECRET COVENANT  BRAZIL - MAKING OF A NOVEL  BIOGRAPHY REVIEWS THE BRIDGE

 

BRAZIL, A Novel

 

Brazil, a Novel cover

 

"Uys has accomplished what no Brazilian author from José de Alencar to Jorge Amado was able to do. He is the first outsider with the total honesty and sympathy to write our national epic in all its decisive episodes.

 

Descriptions like those of the war with Paraguay are unsurpassed in our literature and evoke the great passages of War and Peace."

Wilson Martins, Jornal do Brasil     

                          

[PRINT and KINDLE]

Kindle

THE KINDLE ILLUSTRATED

GUIDE TO BRAZIL

 

READ AN EXCERPT

"THE GREATEST WAR FOUGHT BETWEEN NATIONS IN THE AMERICAS"

A BRAZILIAN BOY'S WALK TO SLAVERY


MAKING OF A NOVEL

 

Slave ball and chain, Pernambucan sugar estate

ONLINE LITERARY ARCHIVE

 

BRAZIL

 

THE MAKING OF A NOVEL

 

 

I searched for the story of Brazil for five years, a literary pathfinder in quest of the epic of the Brazilian people.

I share my mighty journey of twenty thousand kilometers across the length and breadth of Brazil. A quest driven by a passion for writing and storytelling.

I explore the exhaustive processes that go into the writing of a novel with a first draft of three-quarters of million words penned in the old-fashioned way, by hand.


LA FORTERESSE VERTE

La Forteresse Verte cover

Presses de la Cité

Paris, 2007

No one before knew how to bring to life Brazil and her history. Uys's characters are brilliant and colorful, combining elements of the best swashbuckler with those worthy of deepest reflection.

Le Figaro, Paris    

 

RIDING THE RAILS

 

Riding the Rails: Teenagers on the Move During the Great Depression, cover

TEENAGERS ON THE MOVE DURING THE

GREAT DEPRESSION

"As gripping, as it is well-researched, Uys so thoroughly recreates the  wretched conditions the boxcar boys and girls endured  that the reader can all but hear the cadence of the  trains on the tracks and the lonesome wail at every  whistle stop."

Boston Globe

"Riding the Rails sets out to tell about a few of the 250,000 teenagers who hopped freights and lived the hobo life in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash ... paints a brisk, colorful, fast-paced portrait of lean times and high hopes."

Tulsa World              

[PRINT and KINDLE]

 

WHAT LIFE WAS LIKE DURING

THE GREAT DEPRESSION

HOW YOUNG AMERICANS

SURVIVED THE HARD TIMES OF

THE GREAT DEPRESSION


MEMORIES OF THE

BOXCAR KIDS

Boxcar kids, Great Depression

Read a selection of letters from men and women who rode the rails during the 1930s. 


DOCUMENTARY

Riding the Rails DVD cover

RIDING THE RAILS

a film by Michael Uys and Lexy Lovell

Peabody Award

"Best Documentary"

Directors Guild of America

Los Angeles Film Critics

19 national/international awards


THE BOSTON PAGES

My work on the story of America is inspired by an extensive earlier foray into Boston. See: Timing is Everything.

Many characters and stories outlined for Boston will be an integral part of my American epic.

 

 

BOSTON OUTLINE

About the Outline

Book One: The Beaver

Book Two: The Shop at the Seven Steps

Book Three: Long Wharf

Book Four: Jacob's Ladder

Book Five: Boston Common

FAMILY TREES

The Steeles

The Tranes

The Lynches

The Flys

BOSTON RESEARCH LINKS

BOSTON WORKING NOTES

Boston Clipping File

Library

Notebook - Ireland

Notebook - Boston

 

THE COVENANT

WORKING WITH JAMES A. MICHENER

 

Photo Errol Lincoln Uys and James Michener

ONLINE LITERARY ARCHIVE

 

James Michener's

Secret Covenant

 

 

A unique look at what went into the making of The Covenant, providing an intimate view of a controversial collaboration that produced Michener's South African epic.

 

  ASSIGNMENT

PLOTTING THE NOVEL

RESEARCHING THE NOVEL

 MANUSCRIPT

 

"Every excerpt, every page you have written for my book these past weeks shows that you are a writer with a superb use of the English language, a remarkable vocabulary and a very special turn of phrase...You unquestionably have the talent to write almost anything you direct your attention to." -- Michener to Uys


The Covenant cover

 


A NOVEL OF AMERICA

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WRITING AN EPIC ONLINE

A Novel of America is an independent online writing project launched in November 2008.

I have worked on two epic novels from start to finish, my own Brazil and my collaboration with James A. Michener on The Covenant, a saga of South Africa.

My plan for A Novel of America is to follow the exact scheme Michener and I used in crafting our books, with a key difference of letting these multi-layered tasks unfold on the Web.

I see the project as part of the long transition between traditional books and literary concepts of the future, aspects of which I discuss in The Bridge, a companion blog to A Novel of America.

 


 


 

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RECENT POSTS

The Future of Newspapers(2):

"All the News That's Fit to Print or Fit to Link?"

The Future of Newspapers:

Seeing the Wood for the Trees

in Steven Johnson's "Old-Growth"

Kindle 2: Who Says

E-Books Aren't "Real" Books ?


about the writer

 

Errol Lincoln Uys, Johannesburg


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Battle of Tuyuti, Paraguayan War


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    ©2008-2009 Errol Lincoln Uys

     BRAZIL  |  RIDING THE RAILS  |   BOXCAR KIDS A NOVEL OF AMERICA  MICHENER'S SECRET COVENANT  BRAZIL - MAKING OF A NOVEL  BIOGRAPHY REVIEWS THE BRIDGE