With years of abuse behind her and a bleak future ahead, a young German woman dreams of her country's colony in South-West Africa. When she learns of the women being transported to the colony to attend to the needs of male settlers, Hanna X takes the leap. In Africa she is confronted with the harsh realities of colonial life. For resisting the advances of a German officer, she is banished to Frauenstein, a phantasmagoric outpost that is at once a "prison, nunnery, brothel, and shithouse." When the drunken excesses of visiting soldiers threaten the young girl who has become her only companion, Hanna revolts. Mounting a ragtag army of women and native victims of brutality, she sets out on an epic journey to take on the German Reich. Combining the history of colonialism with the myths of Africa, this is an exquisitely written tale of suffering, violence, revenge, and, simply, love.
Author
André Philippus Brink was a South African novelist. He wrote in Afrikaans and English and was until his retirement a Professor of English Literature at the University of Cape Town. In the 1960s, he and Breyten Breytenbach were key figures in the Afrikaans literary movement known as Die Sestigers ("The Sixty-ers"). These writers sought to use Afrikaans as a language to speak against the apartheid government, and also to bring into Afrikaans literature the influence of contemporary English and French trends. His novel Kennis van die aand (1973) was the first Afrikaans book to be banned by the South African government. Brink's early novels were often concerned with the apartheid policy. His final works engaged new issues raised by life in postapartheid South Africa.
