Pamela Gien

This book is a beautiful love letter to Africa. A letter from a soul mate who knew it was all horribly flawed and it would never work out, but loved you deeply anyway. No description I can give will do it justice so I'll just leave a few pieces here to stand on their own.

"There was nothing gorgeous about Clova-except the feeling you had when you were there. It was just a simple place, a beloved refuge in the looming, graceful shadow of the Soutpansberg Mountains, five hours north of Johannesburg...Just a dusty farm, really, a quiet place to run wild with the picaninns by day, and when the sun gave up so did you, falling into exhausted sleep, scrubbed and smelling of violets and camphor cream for new-burnt patches. An old place, to run free as a monkey and filthy as you pleased. Bursting barefoot from the car out into the rose-brown furrows, you knew for certain you were in a lucky place."

"...Mahila was the old witch doctor who lived here on the land where we now stood. Black as the stenching folds of a bat's underbelly, he was said to cast spells into the wild, dry air with such skill that if you fell down crippled, you would never know who did it."


"...to my great relief, I mysteriously grew into a lanky girl of sixteen, with a modicum of prettiness. I'd finally adapted to my long feet, which now seemed the right size for my body...I was astonished that overnight I had indeed become something of a lady after all. The monkey I once was had been cast off, like my mud coat, and left somewhere, like a little fallen shadow."

"Butterflies. I don't mean the majestic kind. I just mean the ordinary kind, bobbing about, the kind that come and go, and stun you with their beauty just the same. And you never forget the bright, momentary blur of them."

If that's not enough beauty for you, check out the author's beautiful face!

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/08/06/books/gien190.jpg



… (mer)

This quiet first novel by a South African author (based on a play by the same author) is told from the perspective of a young girl from age six until she is a young mother and college graduate. Apartheid becomes deeply personal as the characters attempt to survive and flourish during the 1960s forward until the oppresive SA government opens up to ALL its citizens. Afrikaans, Africans, British, Jewish, and other groups are portrayed holistically, illuminating apartheid's political and legal beginning and, thankfully, its end. As others have written in their reviews, I read the last few pages while weeping. I look forward to more books from this author.… (mer)