Fiela's Child [Paperback]

Dalene Matthee (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf (1986)
• ASIN: B001OCFC24
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,227,837 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dalene Matthee, author of 13 books, is best known for her four "Forest books" on the Knysna Forest: Circles in a Forest, Fiela's Child, The Mulberry Forest and Dreamforest.

Dalene was born in Riversdale in the Southern Cape, South Africa, in 1938. She began her writing career with children's stories and short stories before taking on her first novel after a hiking trip through the Outeniqua hiking trail around Knysna. Her curiosity led to a journey through the stories and studies of these indigenous forests. In the end, she gathered enough material for four books.

Each book is underpinned by thorough research. Her books have been translated into 14 languages, and some of her books have been used as prescribed books in schools for over 20 years. Dalene has received various awards, including the ATKV Prose Award (4 times), the Southern African Institute of Forestry Award (twice), the Swiss Stab Award and the Department of Arts and Culture's SA Literary Award (posthumously). She is the only South African author of whom over 1 million Afrikaans books have been sold.

She died in 20 February 2005 and a memorial has been erected for her in the Knysna Forest. More information available at http://www.dalenematthee.co.za/english/index.html

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a powerful story, June 22, 2000

By 

Kathy Dias (Modesto, Ca.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fiela's Child (Phoenix Fiction) (Paperback)

There is so much to be learned and so much to be absorbed inwhen reading Fiola's Child. The perfect love and acceptance between amother and a child, although different races, the still-presiding conflicts between the black and white race, the need we all have as human beings to understand who we really are, the wreched and empty lives gained by those who take and do not give, and the heartfelt passion between a man and woman, thought at once to be siblings. The plot is thick, and the end is thought provoking. I think somebody should make a movie from this book. It's truly a must-read.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heart wrenching scenes and some that make your veins boil!, September 16, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Fiela's Child (Phoenix Fiction) (Paperback)

It is a book that brings back the disharmony and racialistic view of the Whites aginst the Coloureds. And in this point of view we see the struggle of a Coloured mother protecting the safety and haven of her White child like a tigeress over her cub. This is a book about romance, about the individual hearts and philosophies; it is also about greed and chauvinism, yet most importantly Fiela's Child is centered and wrapped in but one word - love. The love of Benjamin over Fiela and Nina, Elias' love over money, the love of Nina towards nature and many more. Those who are sentimentalists and with a touch of feminism in them, you will experience a world so real and yet with such illuminated beauty.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great book, September 12, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Brendan, Taipei, Taiwan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fiela's Child (Phoenix Fiction) (Paperback)

Dalene Matthee has long been regarded as one of the masters of the (Afrikaans) Romantic Novel. When we were given Fiela se Kind (English translation: Fiela's Child) as a setwork, I like most students viewed the book with trepidation. After 10 pages, I went and bought myself a copy of the book.

This is the story of a white baby, abandoned by his natural parents, who is found and 'adopted' by a Coloured woman (Fiela), who raises the child, Benjamin, as her own. It explores the joys of Benjamin's childhood, the education that he gets from Fiela (so very different to what he would have got in a white household), and eventually the heartbreak when he is torn away from the only mother he has, and is given to a white wood cutter, who claims that Benjamin is his child who went missing in the forest.

This is a story told with a great sensitivity of the life styles of the people who inhabited the Cape in the mid 1800's. It is a compelling book, heartwrenching at times, humerous at times, but always, it gives the reader a feel for what was happening in the hearts of the people involved. The Characters may come across as being very simple, but that is the essence of the book. Fiela's simple, but pure, love for her child, the woodcutter's simple, but hard way of life, and Benjamin's simple non-understanding of why he was taken away from the woman he loved, and given to a man he hated. His lack of understanding that he is "better" than Fiela because he is white, and she isn't, and his stuggle to adjust to a new and totally unfamiliar set of rules.

This book could be described a bit like a prison, because once it gets hold of you, it doesn't let go, not until it has finished with you, and not you with it