Pieternella, Daughter of Eva opens in the early days of the first white settlement at the Cape of Good Hope, beneath the shadow of Table Mountain, with the Dutch East India Company clinging precariously to a little piece of land - Robben Island - in Table Bay. Eva was one of the first interpreters and intermediaries between her Goringhaicona tribe and the Dutch, and Pieternella's father was Pieter van Meerhoff, the Company surgeon who was murdered by slave dealers in Madagascar. Pieternella and her siblings were among 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 can consist of heaven and hell rolled up together in one bundle. After her mother's sudden and untimely...
Acclaimed and well-loved South African author Dalene Matthee died on the 20th of February 2005. Matthee was born in Riversdale in the Southern Cape. After studying music, she began writing short stories and novels. Most of her novels are on-going bestsellers, and have been translated into more than fourteen languages. Penguin Books is her English language publisher and has published Fiela’s Child, Circles in a Forest, The Day the Swallows Spoke, and in 2004, DreamForest, which is the translation of Toorbos. Her last novel, Die Uitgespoeldes, which was completed shortly before her death, was published by Penguin in 2005 in both its original Afrikaans, and in English (entitled Driftwood). To launch the Penguin Modern Classics Series, Penguin reissued Fiela’s Child and Circles in a Forest. http://www.dalenematthee.co.za
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