num_pages: 758
description: This novel of epic proportions from South Africa, set between 1650 and 1710, covers the first fifty years of the Dutch colony at the Cape of Good Hope. Beautifully rendered, this is a world and a time never before dealt with in fiction-a period when powerful colonizers took over the lands of Hottentot tribes, exposing aborigines for the first time to Western eyes and Western ways. Through the life stories of seven men-all involved with and defined in one way or another by Pieternella, the beautiful daughter of the first mixed marriage of the new colony-we gain an understanding of the vast historical forces at work.Teeming with characters, rich with lived experience, gripping in its unexpected turns, Islands is a story of greed, power, war, courage, and international intrigue, at once a meticulously researched portrait of the age, and a great adventure story.
language: English
title: Islands
titlecomplete: Islands
genres: Contemporary, 21st Century, Historical Fiction, African Literature, South Africa, Africa, Historical, Classics, Novels, Fiction
ratings_count: 412
places: South Africa, Mauritius
awards: awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: W.A. Hofmeyr Prize, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: M-Net Literary Award, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Helgaard Steyn-toekenning vir Afrikaanse letterkunde
publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt