Context, Popularity, & Audience

Bryce Courtenay, the author and inspired novelist of the book, ‘The Power of One’, was born in 1933 in South Africa and in which spent all his early childhood years in a town, deep in the Lebombo Mountains. He was and still is a bestselling author. The “Power of One” was his first novel that was he wrote and wasn’t popular when it first came out, but now it is. It’s popularity has been noticed by penguin books and therefore since it’s within the category of his previous work, it has greater interest for the readers and since it’s about Bryce Courtenay’s life story, the novel straight away has become a lot more interesting because it instantly can be related to the readers perspective in a sense that it is realistic. 

Bryce is now over 55 years old and has grandchildren, his life has been well educated, starting at Lebombo, moving onto universities studying journalism and now becoming a writer. As I received the penguin edition of the book, I didn’t really have a very appealing front cover, but as the saying goes, ‘don’t judge the book by its front cover’. Once you start reading it, it captures your attention straight away by the first line, as it continues, I found that it gets a bit strenuous, introducing and all that, but you get that with all novels. The language conventions used within the novel are amazing, in the sense that you can relate to most of what is said and can also interpret and imagine what it would be like in your head. Because of the way it’s written and the amount of detail it contains, many people consider it to be a great read and like the way its keeps the reader entertained. The novel is mostly intended for teenagers and those in adolescence, but it can also be for those aged right up to 80 years old, for it doesn’t specifically relate to anyone of any age, so it can be read and interested in by anyone.