Moederland cover art

Moederland

Nine Daughters of South Africa

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Moederland

By: Cato Pedder
Narrated by: Michelene Aiton
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About this listen

 'Exploring the past, bringing it to vivid life with wonderful prose . . . Pedder writes with perspicacity and sensitivity . . . We need more books like this' Observer

'Fascincating and engrossing' Literary Review

How did South Africa turn out the way it did? In Moederland - 'Motherland', in Afrikaans - Cato Pedder takes us on an eye-opening journey across four centuries, tracing the country's turbulent past and the rise and fall of apartheid (and her family's charged legacy) through the lives of nine very different women.

KROTOA is Khoikhoi translator to the newly arrived Dutch East India Company

ANGELA, a former slave from Bengal, climbs the ladder of settler society

ELSJE arrives from Germany aged 3, marries at 13, a mother at 15

ANNA, mistress of the Cape's grandest estate, regains control from her violent husband

MARGARETHA, uncompromising Afrikaner farmer, resists the abolition of slavery

ANNA loads her family on an ox-wagon and treks into the interior to elude the British

ISIE survives the Boer War to become wife of South Africa's Prime Minister and 'Mother of the Nation'

CATO escapes to England and the Quakers as white supremacy mutates into apartheid

PETRONELLA, returning to the Motherland, falls in love across the colour bar and risks everything to fight the system her grandfather set in motion.©2024 Cato Pedder (P)2024 Hodder & Stoughton Limited Africa Racism & Discrimination Social Sciences Women Marriage Social justice Colonial Period
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This is not just a great history of South Africa, but a engagingly written, harrowing and exciting story of a tortured nation traced through generations of women in the author's family. Vivid, poetic and thourough... I look foward to re-reading.

Fascinating, thought-provoking history

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As an ex-pat SA in the UK I found the book eloquent, mesmerising, enlightening, reminiscent. One I would listen to again. I just wish any images that I assume came with the book eg family tree could have been downloaded as a PDF to the audio version.

Wow

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Such a great idea for a book - so sadly disappointing. I was truly excited about the concept of this book,but unfortunately the author can only see through a lens of oppression and does women a huge injustice by making them all weak victims and failing to recognise or celebrate the incredible achievements of the remarkable women through South African history, who have proven to be the backbone of South African society across races. She cannot celebrate people of all races and genders as individuals and recognise the good many have done and their extraordinary and moving contributions through South African history; no heroes/heroines in this book - not even the matriarch who single-handed runs and develops one of South Africa’s premier vineyards in trying times. Rather, for the author, as a subscriber to identity politics, it is all about the oppressors (bad,) and the oppressed (good) - often leading to not just inaccurate history (plenty) but also double standards throughout the book (eg. Trekboer cattle-grazing destructive, Khoikhoi cattle grazing in one place good; Huguenots escaping persecution are malevolent colonisers, on the other hand she laments the fact that migrants of different skin colours are not welcomed in foreign lands; she can’t avoid women’s rights under Roman Dutch law, but then tries to undermine that). I am interested in South African history and so, while the author clearly has many talents, because of the polemical nature of this book and associated inaccuracies (too many to mention - she should at least have done some homework on the real story behind Invictus and Mandela),

I would not recommend reading. She is clear that society’s woes are very clearly the result of the scourge of the patriarchy. I dread to say it, but the author feels like a victim of indoctrination (from SOAS, amnesty international?) and also of a self-inflicted guilt for her legacy from which she is desperate to distance herself, ashamed of her Afrikaans past. She can barely give her great grandfather (and what he did for the world was truly great) credit for his achievements in bringing progress in the world and the peace he wrought.

Such a great idea for a book - a sadly wasted opportunity. There are a few moments when she tries to capture the sights and smells of an era and she is very good and makes me think she could be a phenomenal author, if she could shake off her polemical prism.

The narrator has a wonderful reading voice and is perfect in so many ways for this book (with a sort of neutral South African accent), but should really do her homework on how to say certain words, which jar when completely mispronounced, often (eg sparse, de rigeur, cypress, grandees to mention a few).

Disappointing Polemic - A Sadly Wasted Opportunity

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