Fiela's Child

As an immigrant, I’ve heard the history of South Africa recounted countless times. While I can report the events of the apartheid era and describe Nelson Mandela’s role in the journey to reconciliation, the history textbooks I’ve read are purely factual, lacking emotion and true human sentiment. I’ve always wondered how South Africans felt amidst these tensions and how day-to-day interactions were affected by such intense political turmoil; that’s when my mom introduced me to Fiela’s Child, a South African novel originally written in Afrikaans by Dalene Matthee, who published a total of thirteen books during her lifetime (Dalene Matthee). Translated into English, German, Dutch, French, Hebrew, Slovenian, and Swedish, the tale offers insight into the state of nineteenth-century South Africa while crafting an unforgettable story that voices numerous truths. The novel has provided the most impactful history lesson to me by offering a glimpse into the emotion of apartheid-era South Africa through an engaging story that essentially translates the facts of history into the lives of memorable characters. Originally entitled Fiela se kind when it was first published in Afrikaans by Tafelberg Publishers (1985), the novel tells the story of a young white boy, Benjamin, who wandered off from home and was found by a colored woman, Fiela Komoetie, who took him …show more content…
Fiela’s Child came second, following close behind the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. That being said, although the novel’s economic worth may appear minimal since there is limited information concerning its value, the quality and consequential influence of the story has been