Islands [Hardcover]

Dan Sleigh (Author), Andre Brink (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 11, 2005

This novel of epic proportions from South Africa, set between 1650 and 1710, covers the first fifty years of the Dutch colony at the Cape of Good Hope. Beautifully rendered, this is a world and a time never before dealt with in fiction-a period when powerful colonizers took over the lands of Hottentot tribes, exposing aborigines for the first time to Western eyes and Western ways. Through the life stories of seven men-all involved with and defined in one way or another by Pieternella, the beautiful daughter of the first mixed marriage of the new colony-we gain an understanding of the vast historical forces at work.

Teeming with characters, rich with lived experience, gripping in its unexpected turns, Islands is a story of greed, power, war, courage, and international intrigue, at once a meticulously researched portrait of the age and a great adventure story.

(20050401)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Debut author Sleigh's magisterial epic re-creates the fatal 17th-century Dutch encounter with the native Goringhaicona peoples (whom they called the Hottentot) on the Cape of Good Hope, largely through the plight of a native woman and her interracial children. At the novel's start, in the mid-1600s, the aging leader Autshumao, or Chief Harry, watches his people succumb to their new tastes for brandy and tobacco, supplied by the Dutch in exchange for their labor. Unable to provide for his starving band, Chief Harry offers his young niece Krotoa to work in the household of Commander van Riebeeck, head of the Dutch Company, in exchange for cattle and tobacco. Here follows the bleak fate of Krotoa, now Eva, and her daughter Pieternella, as seen through the biographies of the men who knew them. Peter Havgard, a Danish surgeon, marries Eva and fathers three of her children. After Peter is killed on Mauritius, Bart Borms, a sailor turned farmer, helps care for the widowed Eva and her children abandoned on Robben Island, a prison garrison run by the German Corporal Hans Michiel Callenbach. Later, Fiscal Deneyn, posted to the Fort of Good Hope to keep the peace, wants to marry 14-year-old Pieternella after Eva dies of syphilis and alcoholism. The girl weds sailor turned free burgher Daniel Zaaijman instead, and they attain a measure of happiness on Mauritius before the decline of the Dutch Company forces them to return to the Cape. Finally, Company officer and clerk Johannes Grevenbroeck concludes Pieternella's story as he researches his book, Portrait of the Cape, years later. With stately prose, deftly handled characterization and nuanced history, Sleigh has crafted a breathtakingly wide-ranging opus.
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From Booklist

With depth and drama, this huge first novel tells the anguished story of the first 50 years of white settlement in southern Africa. Sleigh, an Afrikaans archivist, draws on a wealth of official records, as well as personal journals and letters, to humanize the sprawl of -seventeenth-century colonial history through the viewpoints of various characters who tell "the other stories crying to be heard." Among those characters are Autshumao ("Chief Harry"), of the Koina Hottentot people (who helps the Dutch, then leads a rebellion against them, and is imprisoned on Robben Island); his child, Eva (adopted and educated by the Dutch commander Van Riebeeck, she acts as interpreter); her mixed-race daughter, Pieternella; and many more. The horrific racism is always there as the whites "buy" the land with alcohol and tobacco and subdue the "unruly savages." There are also unforgettable moments of intimacy, as when Pieternella and the Dutch court official declare their love. Eloquently translated from the Afrikaans by novelist Brink, this stirring story uses local details to reveal universal historical truths. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 768 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (April 11, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 015101115X
• ISBN-13: 978-0151011155
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.5 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,048,907 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An epic of human survival, September 7, 2006

By 

D. Martz (Vienna, VA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Islands (Hardcover)

This novel transcends the category of fiction (which tells a story) and deserves to be classified as literature (a story that yields profound insights into the human condition). Though told primarily from the Dutch viewpoint, there are a few key sympathetic indigenous characters here and Sleigh's contempt for the Dutch strategy of conquest by means of deliberately addicting native Africans to alcohol and tobacco (that they can only get by cooperating with the Europeans) is evident. The "Islands" of the title are both individual human beings and small outlying settlements of colonists struggling to survive and to gain economically. Looming over all these stories is the all-powerful Dutch East India Company a behemoth of unbending, beaucratic greed that grinds down employee and foe alike. Maps would have been very helpful. It's also true that the language of this book is at times demanding (there are too many untranslated terms), but even this adds a tang of authenticity and reminds us that this story could only have been told with such depth and understanding by a South African.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Compelling!, May 24, 2005

By 

Armchair Interviews (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Islands (Hardcover)

The epic novel Islands, by Dan Sleigh is an ambitious first novel covering the first fifty years of the Dutch settlement at the Cape of Good Hope in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. It is a fascinating novel thoroughly researched by Sleigh and constructed from factual accounts, official records and personal letters.

Islands is the life stories of seven men who are all connected in one way or another to the beautiful Pieternella, the daughter of a Dutch surgeon Peter Havgard and Eva, a Hottentot woman. Pieternella is the offspring of the first mixed marriage in the new colony.

Islands is a haunting drama filled with excitement, greed, power, intrigue, war and individual courage. At times the novel is absolutely spectacular and at other times the story seems to drag a bit. The book is well over 700 pages so it takes commitment to begin the story. But overall it is a mesmerizing saga; one that will keep you turning the pages and have you considering the story and history long after you've finished it. This is a novel that will be appreciated by those who particularly enjoy historical writings.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Stunning, April 17, 2004

By 

TWAN "tten_0" (South Africa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Islands (Paperback)

A prize-winner in its native Afrikaans language, this edition has been translated by Andre Brink. Dense, rich prose (very hard to read but worth the effort) and detailed historical facts are crammed into this book (the author worked in the National Archives in Cape Town). Recommended.