Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #298407 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Alfred Hickling, Guardian
‘Quite dazzling’.

Hugo Barnacle, The Sunday Times
'[Brink] lives up to his large reputation and gives us a striking, finely crafted character study'

Synopsis
In his early years, growing up on a Dutch farm in the deep interior of the southern African Cape, Cupido Cockroach became the greatest drinker, liar, fornicator and fighter of his region. Coming under the spell of a woman, the soap-boiler Anna, and the great Dr Johannes Theodorus van der Kemp of the London Missionary Society, Cupido is then made the first Khoi or 'Hottentot' missionary ordained at the Cape of Good Hope. Received into the fold of the Church, Cupido passionately turns against all his early beliefs and is appointed as missionary in a remote and arid region in the North-western Cape. But this also marks the beginning of his decline, as the Society abandons him to his fate. One by one, the members of his congregation disappear into the desert, so that in the end, abandoned even by his wife and children, he is left to preach to the stones and thorn trees and tortoises, returning to the dream-world of his people.

Customer Reviews

Reminds me of Home
This book is a magical storytale based on various historical facts. I was always told what a good writer Andre Brink was, but never read one of his books until now. The book was gripping - happiness and sadness mixed up in a sweet-sour relationship to make it a glorious rollercoaster ride of life and death, religion and spirituality, morality and immortality.
I would definitely recommend if you want to get a good taste of what life in Africa is about.