| Edition |
First U.S. edition. |
| Description |
x, 581 pages ; 22 cm |
| Note |
First published in English in South Africa by Jonathan Ball Publishers under the title The way of the women (2006). |
|
Glossary of Afrikaans and South African English words included. |
| Summary |
Seventy-year-old Milla de Wet is slowly dying of paralysis, unable to move or talk, helpless and in the care of Agaat. They are two women--white and black--living on a farm in South Africa at a time when the nation is undergoing huge racial and social change. But they have their own personal history between them. Van Niekerk shifts back and forth from the present to the past, and from first person to third person, including long, rambling diary passages, all from Milla's perspective, to tell a tangled story that takes place during the years 1947?96. The sweep is as grand as the racial politics in South Africa and as intimate as the longings of one lonely woman for connectedness. Smart and assertive since she came to the farm with a crippled right hand, Agaat has been far more than a servant, to the eternal irritation of Milla's husband, Jak de Wet. Jak is handsome but limited, for which he compensates by beating Milla. Agaat's seething anger and sadness are barely concealed beneath the veneer of the loyal and dutiful servant even as Milla loses the ability to communicate and Agaat reads the diary entries. This novel stuns with its powerful sense of the rigors of farm life, desolation of a failing marriage, and comfort of a long and complex relationship--Booklist. |
| Language |
Translated from the Afrikaans. |
| Subject |
Women farmers -- South Africa -- Fiction.
|
|
Women household employees -- South Africa -- Fiction.
|
|
South Africa -- Social life and customs -- Fiction.
|
| Added Author |
Heyns, Michiel.
|
| Added Title |
Agaat. English (Heyns)
|
| ISBN |
9780982503096 |
|
0982503091 |
|
