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Shades

ISBN 
9780143530237
Format 
Paperback
Recommended Price 
R290.00
Published 
September 2012
About the book: 

Against a backdrop of drought, the rinderpest pandemic, the South African War, the burgeoning gold-mining industry and the complex birth of the exploitative system of recruiting migrant labour, Shades  explores the growing tensions between cultures in South Africa at the turn of the twentieth century and the deepening awareness of the black mission-educated elite, empowered by the printing press, of the need to articulate their political and spiritual beliefs.

Set within the microcosm of an isolated Eastern Cape mission, Shades  is not only a love story and the chronicle of a family but a sensitive and perceptive insight into the country's wider conflicts. It explores the slow but inexorable destruction of the fabric of a community, the assault on its traditions and the struggle to reconcile two faiths: the Christian and the traditional beliefs of the amaXhosa in their ancestral shades. It is the story of those far-sighted enough to seek convergence and those destined to undermine its wisdom.

Primarily, Shades is an intimate tale of love, friendship, acceptance and profound loss: of life, of faith and of belonging.

Other titles by this author 
About the Author
Marguerite Poland has successfully and eloquently mastered writing for both children and adults. Her landmark 1979 book  The Mantis And The Moon  is credited with establishing a market for indigenous children’s books in English in South Africa. Poetic, sensitively-layered and lucid, Poland’s novels for adults have won several prestigious awards. A meticulous researcher, she has also written a number of academic papers and reports.
 
Fluent in Xhosa and isiZulu, much of Poland’s work reflects her interest in African culture with some of her childrens stories in particular inspired by African oral traditions. Her keen understanding and appreciation of the South African landscape, its fauna and flora, as well as its peoples, is colourfully evident in her writing.
 
Married with two daughters, Marguerite Poland spends her time between Grahamstown and Durban.

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