Agaat

On the farm Grootmoedersdrift, Milla lies paralysed in bed, nursed by Agaat, the coloured woman she brought up and moulded to resemble herself until the two seem to have invented each other. Through Milla’s memories fifty years of farm life unfold: a line of strong women who govern from behind the scenes, and a bitter, mutually destructive marriage to Jak, who comes to feel he is never good enough and starts to hit her. The couple fight over who will shape young Jakkie, whom Jak makes cut the tail off his pet lamb and steers towards the air force, though it was Agaat who largely raised the boy. Heir to a heritage that will not acknowledge her, Agaat is bound to Milla by love and resentment, blame and guilt, and one household’s story comes to mirror Afrikaner life from the 1950s onward.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

718 pages in the original

Genres

Family (assigned by AI)

Set in

South Africa

First published

2004 by Tafelberg

Author's age

50 when first published

ISBN

9780624042068 (original)

9781868422562 (Jonathan Ball, South Africa)

9780982503096 (Tin House Books, United States)