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Patagonia
Tertius de Klerk: Afrikaner, hapless academic and potential has-been. A drunken one-night stand with a student, the confrontation, a terrible incident. Tertius must flee.
Like his great-grandfather Basjan before him, Tertius leaves for Patagonia, the remote South American region where his forebears started anew after the Anglo-Boer War. It’s a desperate act, but also an opportunity to seek refuge among longlost relatives on the windswept plains of the continent’s southernmost tip.
History repeats itself as his spirited wife Alta sets off after him – just as his great-grandmother Salome pursued the wayward Basjan across ocean and desert.
With a heady mix of adventure and humour, Maya Fowler’s novel spans the wide Patagonian plains, and transports you to the New World on Spanish soil, where the Afrikaans language survives to this day.
Like his great-grandfather Basjan before him, Tertius leaves for Patagonia, the remote South American region where his forebears started anew after the Anglo-Boer War. It’s a desperate act, but also an opportunity to seek refuge among longlost relatives on the windswept plains of the continent’s southernmost tip.
History repeats itself as his spirited wife Alta sets off after him – just as his great-grandmother Salome pursued the wayward Basjan across ocean and desert.
With a heady mix of adventure and humour, Maya Fowler’s novel spans the wide Patagonian plains, and transports you to the New World on Spanish soil, where the Afrikaans language survives to this day.
384 pages, Softcover
Published May 14, 2018
5 people are currently reading
23 people want to read
About the author
Maya Fowler
13 books7 followersMaya Fowler is a writer and translator. She is the author of The Elephant in the Room (shortlisted for the Herman Charles Bosman Prize) and the youth novels As jy ’n ster sien verskiet and Om op eiers te dans (winner of a Maskew Miller Longman award for youth literature). A children’s book of hers, Tortoise Finds His Home, won Unicef ’s Best Author in Early Childhood Development Literature Prize and was translated into Afrikaans. She grew up in Stellenbosch and Graaff-Reinet, and holds a master’s degree in linguistics from the University of Stellenbosch. She lives and works in Canada.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 7, 2018
Wat 'n lekkerte om hierdie boek te ontdek! Van die vier hoofkarakters word Tertius, die "swakste" karakter, se stem die sterkste. Juis in sy swakheid ontwikkel die leser die grootste deernis vir hom.
Die wilde landskap van Patagonië word self 'n karakter in die verhaal.
'n Baie besondere boek en 'n moet vir lesers wat van geskiedenis hou. Of sommer net van 'n aangrypende storie.
Die wilde landskap van Patagonië word self 'n karakter in die verhaal.
'n Baie besondere boek en 'n moet vir lesers wat van geskiedenis hou. Of sommer net van 'n aangrypende storie.
August 9, 2018
This novel is based on the incredible story of how 650 Boers emigrated to windswept Patagonia in Argentina in the early 1900s after the war with the English. This group of people did not want to live under British rule, and the Argentinian government promised them land on which to farm. The descendants of this group still speak antiquated Afrikaans to this day.
The story has the structure of a fugue - a short piece of music in two or more voices that becomes a recurring motif. In the case of "Patagonia", the fugue (written by the author herself that is printed at the beginning of the book) represents the four voices of the four main characters in the book.
Basjan is one of the Boers who leave for Argentina, though his motives for doing so are less than pure. He's impregnated a single woman, Salome, and doesn't want to marry her. Salome, however, won't take this lying down and follows him to Argentina to force him to take responsibility.
At the same time, in the present day, Tertius (one of Basjan's descendants), a professor at Stellenbosch University commits a horrible crime and does a similarly cowardly thing, heading for Argentina to find his long-lost family. Alta, Tertius' wife, is furious and vows to find him and make him answer for his actions.
The novel is fascinating, not only in its structure and the clever way it uses music as a thread throughout the book but its characters' motives are interesting, making this a gripping read.
"Patagonia" explores the importance of land, language and Afrikaner identity, all topical issues in South Africa at the moment. The use of language is deft (the author is a translator, after all), at times melodic, using clipped staccatos and building up in crescendos.
I was privileged enough to interview the author recently. You can find a video of that interview here: Interview with Maya Fowler
The story has the structure of a fugue - a short piece of music in two or more voices that becomes a recurring motif. In the case of "Patagonia", the fugue (written by the author herself that is printed at the beginning of the book) represents the four voices of the four main characters in the book.
Basjan is one of the Boers who leave for Argentina, though his motives for doing so are less than pure. He's impregnated a single woman, Salome, and doesn't want to marry her. Salome, however, won't take this lying down and follows him to Argentina to force him to take responsibility.
At the same time, in the present day, Tertius (one of Basjan's descendants), a professor at Stellenbosch University commits a horrible crime and does a similarly cowardly thing, heading for Argentina to find his long-lost family. Alta, Tertius' wife, is furious and vows to find him and make him answer for his actions.
The novel is fascinating, not only in its structure and the clever way it uses music as a thread throughout the book but its characters' motives are interesting, making this a gripping read.
"Patagonia" explores the importance of land, language and Afrikaner identity, all topical issues in South Africa at the moment. The use of language is deft (the author is a translator, after all), at times melodic, using clipped staccatos and building up in crescendos.
I was privileged enough to interview the author recently. You can find a video of that interview here: Interview with Maya Fowler
July 21, 2018
Die twee parallelle stories is baie slim verbind, om die ooreenkomste saam te vleg, die storie wat in die agterkleinseun se lewe herhaal. Die man vlug na 'n skandaal, die vrou sit hom agterna Pategonië toe. Is Tertius en Alta dalk Basjan en Salomé gereïnkarneer?
Was die vroue ook 'n metafoor vir die manne se gewete, hulle skaduwee/skadukant waarvan hulle nie kon ontvlug nie? Salomé se verhaal is minder volledig as diévan die ander drie, dis jammer.
Toe ek Patagonië klaar gelees het, het ek gedink dis 'n wonderlike storie, maar ek het nie een deel in my Kindle gemerk vir besondere woordgebruik nie. Nie dat daar enigsins fout is met die boek nie, maar sekere skrywers se taalgebruik vibreer met my wese en ek vergewe dikwels 'n swak storie omdat die taalgebruik so mooi is. Hierdie een is (vir my) net 'n baie goeie storie.
Ek huiwer tussen drie en vier sterre, maar as ek oor iets twyfel, is daar (vir my) altyd 'n rede. Dus 'n baie subjektiwe drie.
May 10, 2019
Verrassend en in verkwiklike Afrikaans.
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August 19, 2018Interview & review on behalf of the Sunday Times: http://bit.ly/2MHsyyV
~[His students'] fingers were flying. It always astonished him how they tried to capture every word, how they couldn't understand it was more important to listen.~
~Wind that could put even a sparrow off its song.~
~Was the Afrikaner in diaspora still an Afrikaner?~
~It seems to me we're a bit of a wandering tribe. Since the Great Trek. You people are here, after all. Today everyone's going to Australia, or Canada, or New Zealand. Into the jaws, actually, of the language your people tried to escape.~
~Had she been a man, he would have never put up with such nonsense, would have long ago picked up his rifle. not that he had done anything like that outside of battle, but with a man you knew where you stood. A woman was something else.~
~[His students'] fingers were flying. It always astonished him how they tried to capture every word, how they couldn't understand it was more important to listen.~
~Wind that could put even a sparrow off its song.~
~Was the Afrikaner in diaspora still an Afrikaner?~
~It seems to me we're a bit of a wandering tribe. Since the Great Trek. You people are here, after all. Today everyone's going to Australia, or Canada, or New Zealand. Into the jaws, actually, of the language your people tried to escape.~
~Had she been a man, he would have never put up with such nonsense, would have long ago picked up his rifle. not that he had done anything like that outside of battle, but with a man you knew where you stood. A woman was something else.~
November 15, 2018
Read this in Afrikaans, and then watched the documentary, Boers at the end of the world. Beautifully written, giving insight into a very interesting period of Afrikaner history, I enjoyed this book immensely and can highly recommend it. I am really looking forward to reading Maya's next book.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews