This book was first published in 1996 but I read a new edition with a foreword by the author, dated 2019.
Jo-Anne Richards has written a story of innocence lost and a yearning for hope regained. It moves from 1966, when Kati was a happy child celebrating every Christmas at her grandparents’ farm, to 1989 and the emergence of the post-apartheid era.
Jo-Anne’s prose describing the farm and its Eastern Cape setting is some of the most beautiful I have ever read. Scenes from Kati’s life with her brothers, parents and grandparents were vivid moving pictures in my mind. The relationships between the white people and the African employees in the house and on the farm are seen through the child’s eyes, as are the inter personal relationships between her parents and her grandparents.
Quite brilliantly worked all through the story is the gradual unfolding of how Kati changes from a happy, innocent child to a bitter young woman, constantly trying to hurt her husband and their friends, sneering at their optimistic hopes for the future of their country. The tension becomes almost unbearable while the chapters intersperse between Kati’s world of 1966 and her present life in 1989. The resolution is well worth waiting for and makes me recommend this book highly. A very solid 5 out of 5, and I hope I can find more of Jo-Anne Richards’ books.
Published by Picador Africa.
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