Sinopsis
From award-winning author Fred Stenson comes a richly evocative new novel, at once brutal and tender, spare of language, and profoundly moving.
The Great Karoo begins in 1899, as the British are trying to wrest control of the riches of South Africa from the Boers, the Dutch farmers who claimed the land. The Boers have turned out to be more resilient than expected, so the British have sent a call to arms to their colonies — and an a great number of men from the Canadian prairies answer the call and join the Canadian Mounted Rifles: a unit in which they can use their own beloved horses. They assume their horses will be able to handle the desert terrain of the Great Karoo as readily as the plains of their homeland. Frank Adams, a cowboy from Pincher Creek, joins the Rifles, along with other young men from the ranches and towns nearby — a mix of cowboys and mounted policeman, who, for whatever reason, feel a desire to fight for the Empire in this far-off war.
Against a landscape of extremes, Frank forms intense bonds with Ovide Smith, a French cowboy who proves to be a reluctant soldier, and Jefferson Davis, the nephew of a prominent Blood Indian chief, who is determined to prove himself in a “white man’s war.” As the young Canadians engage in battle with an entrenched and wily enemy, they are forced to realize the bounds of their own loyalty and courage, and confront the arrogance and indifference of those who have led them into conflict. For Frank, disillusionment comes quickly, and his allegiance to those from the Distict of Alberta, soon displaces any sense of patriotism to Canada or Britain, or belief that he’s fighting for a just cause.
The events of the novel follow the trajectory of the war. The British strategy of burning Boer farms, destroying herds, and moving Boer families into camps weakens the Boer rebels, but they refuse to give up. The thousands of Boer women and children who die in the camp make the war ever more unpopular among liberals in Britain. (In fact, this conflict marked the first use of the term “concentration camp” in war.) Seeing the ramifications of such short-sighted military decisions, and how they affect what happens to Frank and the other Canadians, is crucial to depicting the reality of the Boer War. By focusing on the experiences of a small group of men from southern Alberta, Fred Stenson brings the reality of what it would have been like to be a soldier in this brutal war to vivid life.
The Great Karoo is a deeply satisfying novel, marked by the complexities of its plot, the subtleties of its relationships, and the scale of its terrain. Exhilarating and gruesome by turns, it explores with passion and insight the lasting warmth of friendship and the legacy of devastation occasioned by war.
Acerca del autor
Fred Stenson was born in Pincher Creek, Alberta, in 1951, and was raised on a farm in ranching country just to the south, near Twin Butte. After attending school in Pincher Creek, he completed a degree in economics at the University of Calgary in 1972. It is his home region — bordered by the Rockies to the west, a Blood Indian reserve to the east, and Montana to the south — that features prominently in much of his historical fiction.
Since his first novel, Lonesome Hero, in 1974, Fred Stenson has published fourteen more books of fiction and non-fiction, and has written scripts for over 140 produced films and videos. It was his masterful third novel, The Trade (2000), which propelled Stenson into the elite ranks of Canadian fiction writers when it was nominated for the Giller Prize, in addition to winning the inaugural Grant MacEwan Writer’s Award, the City of Edmonton Book Prize, and the Writers Guild of Alberta’s Georges Bugnet Novel Award.
Widely praised for its historical depth and vivid prose, The Trade is set in the Canadian West during last days of the fur trade, when the Hudson’s Bay Company traders ruled the rivers far from the eyes of eastern authorities. Stenson’s next novel, Lightning (2003), took up where The Trade left off — when ranching replaced fur trading in the West, and cowboys led vast herds of cattle up through the American states to Montana, Wyoming, and Alberta. Lightning also won the Grant MacEwan Writer’s Award.
The Great Karoo is Fred Stenson’s eighth work of fiction. It follows The Trade and Lightning in telling an epic tale about life in the West through the eyes of regular individuals fighting to make it through each day, despite the large and often indifferent powers that control their fortunes. Today, Fred Stenson lives in Cochrane, Alberta.
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