Red Dog

Coenraad de Buys walks out of his parents’ house at eight, crossing the first of many borders, and before long has left the Cape Colony behind. He defies his godparent Dawid Senekal, kin by marriage, and later the colony’s officials, and as a boy bites the ear off a dog when the pack turns on him; from then on a changing pack of dogs trails him, while runaways and outcasts form a pack of their own around him. Wherever he goes he fathers children, perhaps more than 300, until a whole Buys people exists. Across the frontier of the late 1700s, as robber, outlaw and King of the Basters, he is followed by an all-knowing narrator, Alom-Buys, who speaks across time to the reader and asks to infect them with the legend.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

432 pages in the original

Genres

Historical (assigned by AI)

Set in

South Africa, late 18th century

First published

2014 by Kwela

Author's age

35 when first published

ISBN

9780795706936 (original)

9780795708510 (Kwela, South Africa)