Civilización y mundo primitivo, segregación racial y violencia en el marco del apartheid surafricano de los años setenta, en medio de una naturaleza deslumbrante y de un clima prebélico. Sin embargo, la amistad entre las dos protagonistas, una blanca, propietaria de una hacienda, y una orgullosa nativa, prevalecerá intacta

This was my book club's pick for June of 2006. It tells the story of two South African women, one white, one black. The year isn't given but it is before the fall of apartheid when white people lived a life of ease and privilege and black people toiled for the whites.

The white woman, Marit, is a recent orphan and a recent wife. She and her husband have moved to land on the border to farm. Marit has no siblings and seems to have had no friends other than her husband and she doesn't make friends with the other farmers' wives. The black woman, Tembi, is a little younger than Marit. At the start of the book her mother, who is the cook for Marit and her husband, is killed by a hit and run driver as she walks to the nearest town in the dark. Tembi's father is a miner and has lived apart from Tembi and her mother for some time except for two weeks of holidays. After the mother's funeral he leaves and never returns. Marit asks Tembi to take her mother's job. The relationship gets off to a rocky start but after Marit's husband is killed by a land mine the two women grow very close. The political situation intensifies and Marit is advised to leave but she really has no where else to go. Through natural disasters and man-made trials Marit and Tembi persevere. The ending is sad but also hopeful in terms of the black populace of South Africa.

I thought this was a beautifully written book. The author was born in South Africa but moved to Canada and now lives, according to the bio, "in Toronto and Normandy". He obviously loves the country of South Africa but hated the political situation. In an interview at the back of the book he says he has never been back to South Africa but now he is planning a trip. I felt, while I was reading the book, like I had taken a trip to South Africa. I would recommend this book to anyone. ( )

I do like an unrelentingly sad novel. Gorgeous imagery and symbols. Maybe a little too sentimental but that didn't bother me. And rusk eating.

Definatly, a novelist to read more of. ( )

Sometimes when I finish a really good book I just can’t wait to dash off to the computer and write my review – I want to tell everyone about it. That’s the way I feel about A Blade of Grass by South African/Canadian author Lewis Desoto, which was longlisted for the Booker in 2004. It’s a story of an inter-racial friendship set on the contested South African frontier in the 1970s during the apartheid era. I found it to be a remarkable debut novel that was engaging from the very beginning yet managed to raise complex issues about entitlement to land; about power and gender; and about the destructive effects of fear of The Other.

So you can imagine my surprise when I discovered from some outraged comments at GoodReads that some readers are very cross about this book. For some, there is too much lyrical description, for others too much symbolism. One who thought that DeSoto also has absolutely no place in writing from a female perspective took issue with the way that the peace and harmony of the relationship between two female protagonists, one Black, one White, is disrupted by jealousy over a man. Someone else is peeved about the stereotyping of entrenched racist Afrikaaners; ambivalent, hopeful Britishers; and resentful, disenfranchised Africans. (There was also a reader who thought it was set during the Boer War. The less said about that the better, eh?) The novel copped a very negative review at Culture Wars too.

I don’t think that I read this novel uncritically, so I was relieved to see not only some positive views amongst the others at GR, but also this one from Quill and Quire. I felt that this novel rendered the complexities of living in a racist society with the respect it deserves. The two central characters, Marït and Tembi, are creatures of the society in which they grew up and their identities are forged by the black/white divide. Even when they transcend this divide, as Desoto renders it, they inevitably retain some habits of thought and behaviour, and in moments of crisis they revert to old habits even if intellectually and emotionally they reject them. This seems entirely realistic to me.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2015/01/25/a-blade-of-grass-by-lewis-desoto/ ( )

Soms trage verteltrant, weerspiegeling van het hete, roerloze landschap? Grotere vinnigheid bij actievere passages. Best een aanrader voor wie de sfeer van het land en van de botsende wit-swartsamenleving wil opsnuiven ( )