Philida - Tapa dura

It's 1832. Philida is the mother of four children by Francois Brink, the son of her master. The Cape is rife with rumours about the liberation of the slaves and Philida risks her whole life by lodging a complaint against Francois, who has reneged on his promise to set her free. His father has ordered him to marry a white woman from a prominent Cape Town family, and Philida will be sold on to owners in the harsh country up north. Unwilling to accept this fate, Philida continues to test the limits of her freedom, and with the Muslim slave Labyn she sets off on a journey across the great wilderness on the banks of the Gariep River, to the far north of Cape Town.

ANDRe BRINK is the author of several novels in English, including "A Dry White Season, Imaginings of Sand, The Rights of Desire" and "The Other Side of Silence." He has won South Africa's most important literary prize, the CNA Award, three times and has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize.