Islands

Seven men, each at the centre of a long chapter, tell of the first decades of the Dutch settlement at the Cape and of two women they held dear: Eva, called Krotoa by the Koina, and her daughter Pieternella. It begins with Autshumao, leader of the dwindling Goringhaicona, who places his six-year-old niece in Commander Van Riebeeck's household, where she grows into nursemaid, go-between and interpreter, trusted less and less by either side as violence over cattle and land grows. Then come Peter Havgard, whom she is made to marry, a fisherman, a soldier at an outpost, a cruel prosecutor, a cooper and, last of all, an ageing, disillusioned company clerk, who frames the whole as voices from the sea, gathered from patchy records on a coast of islands, ships and prisons.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

765 pages in the original

Genres

Historical (assigned by AI)

Set in

South Africa, 17th century

First published

2002 by Tafelberg

ISBN

9780624040316 (original)

9780436206207 (Secker & Warburg, United Kingdom)

9780151011155 (Harcourt, United States)