The narrative opens in the early days of the white settlement at the Cape, with the Dutch East India Company clinging precariously to a little piece of land in Table Bay, Robben Island. Pieternella is the daughter of Eva, one of the first interpreters and intermediaries between her Khoikhoi tribe and the Dutch, and Pieter van Meerhoff, the Company surgeon at the Cape. Pieternella and her siblings are amongst the first mixed-race children born at the Cape and their lives are a manifestation of a sentiment often expressed by Matthee in this novel, that life consists of heaven and hell rolled together in the same cloth. After her mother's sudden death, Pieternella and her brother Salomon are sent, reluctantly, as a orphan 'slaves' to foster parents in Mauritius, a penal colony at the time. The sea voyage is described in detail, wondrously imagined, with Pieternella making sense of the new experience in terms of her life at the Cape, so that to her the ship looks like a wooden goose floating on the water and she focuses on the animals on board to orientate herself on the deck, sheep-side and chicken-side.A premature marriage is Pieternella's salvation, but she remains attached to the memory of her mother and is full of turbulent emotions about how she is both brown and white in the same body. What will her children look like? Is she really a half-slave? Eventually Pieternella must learn to come to terms with her life in Mauritius, a realisation that will, with time, give her some peace and comfort.
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
