Two young boys are torn from their families and swept into the informal slave trade of the mid-1800s. They forge a friendship that spans a lifetime and gives rise to this uniquely South African narrative, based on the ancestors of Botlhale Tema.
Released from the shackles of slavery and in search of a lost sister, Maja and Polomane befriend a Swiss missionary and set off to a remote farm in the Pilanesberg region, Welgeval, to establish a mission station and make a new life for themselves. As they raise their families and take in other people who have been dispossessed, we follow the births, deaths, adventures and joys of the farm’s inhabitants in their struggle to build a new community.
Set against the backdrop of slavery, colonialism, the Anglo-Boer War and the rise of apartheid, The People of Welgeval is a superbly crafted and dramatic historical novel. It is an epic story about friendship and family, landownership and learning, and about how people transform themselves from victims to victors.
Author: Botlhale Tema, English, NonArt, Soft cover, 226x145mm, 262 pp, ISBN: 978 1770 073203,
Price: (ZA)R 185.00
Keywords: Bookstore, novel, South-African
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