Book excerpt: "The Lion and the Thespian is a biographical novel based on the true story of the marriage, in 1924, of JG Strijdom, prime minister of South Africa from 1954 to 1958, to the actress Marda Vanne. Written in the genre of biographical fiction, it adheres to well-known, documented and recorded facts about the protagonists, save that when deficiency occurs the author's imagination has taken over."--Page vii.