Fiela's Child
Series: New Longman Literature
Publisher: Longman
Published: 1996-09-27
Place of publication: Harlow, Essex, England
Language: eng
Translated from: eng
Translation of: Fiela se kind
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 408
ISBN-13: 9780582287327
Subjects: English literature: literary criticism; Children: Young Adult (Gr. 7-9); For National Curriculum Key Stage 3; For National Curriculum Key Stage 4 & GCSE; English
First sentence: The day the child disappeared, the fog came up early and by midday it seemed as if the Forest was covered in a thick white cloud.
Description: In Africa a child wanders too far into the Knysna Forest. He never returns. Nine years later, two government officials, working on a census, find a white child living with a Coloured family in the mountains on the other side of the forest. They take him away from the stricken Fiela, who has brought him up, and give him back to his 'original' family. Whipped into using a new name and calling strangers 'ma' and 'pa', Benjamin is so stunned that the cannot cry and waits for Fiela to reclaim him. But Fiela, powerless before authority, never comes. So Benjamin has to grow up before he can go in search of the truth.