Boendoe

by Chris Barnard

Text: Afrikaans

Genres: Africa, Fiction, Mozambique, South Africa, African Literature

216 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Christiaan Johan Barnard, known as Chris Barnard, was a South African author and movie scriptwriter.
He was known for writing Afrikaans novels, novellas, columns, youth novels, short stories, plays, radio dramas, film scripts and television dramas.

Barnard is viewed as one of the more important figures of the movement of the “Sestigers” (Sixty-ers) in Afrikaans literature.

After completing his matric, he did a BA at the University of Pretoria where he was the editor of several university magazines. Later he worked as a journalist at different newspapers and magazines, including Die Vaderland, Dagbreek & Sondagnuus, Die Brandwag en Huisgenoot in addition to working as a publisher. When he got married to the moviemaker Katinka Heyns in 1978 he also got involved in the film industry.

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I’ve read quite a few books from South Africa, most of them have been written in English. I’ve read nearly everything J.M. Coetzee wrote before he migrated to Australia; some by Nadine Gordimer and Gillian Slovo; the Martha Quest books by Doris Lessing; Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton, and in recent years I’ve tried to keep up with the work of Damon Galgut because I find his books intriguing.

Shortlisted for the 2013 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, Bundu by Chris Barnard is one of the few books I’ve read that has been translated from the Afrikaans. Barnard (b.1939) is a highly regarded author in South Africa, winning multiple prizes including a South African Literary Award for Lifetime Achievement. According to Wikipedia he (along with André Brink, an author whose unforgettable 2001 novel The Other Side of Silence I read back in 2004) was a prominent member of Die Sestigers (“The Sixty-ers”), a literary movement which was influenced by contemporary English and French trends and used the Afrikaans language in protest against the apartheid government.

But times have moved on since the 1960s and the battle for democratic government, and Barnard’s short novel of only 219 pages is more concerned with social issues. In one of the most misleading blurbs I’ve come across, the publisher calls it on the book cover ‘an unforgettable African story full of romance and adventure‘ – but anyone expecting a bodice-ripper will be sadly disappointed by this melancholy tale of drought and starvation in the bundu. It’s actually a most unsettling book which left me sleepless after I finally finished it.

By coincidence yesterday I heard Rev Tim Costello talking about Australia’s foreign aid budget on The Religion Report on ABC Radio National. Australia is a long way short of contributing 0.7% of GNP which we signed up to do through the international Millennium goal. We give only 0.35%, but even so, that miserly amount last year saved the lives of 200,000 men, women and especially children. With a federal election later this year and politicians of all stripes talking cost-cutting measures, Costello spoke up on behalf of our aid agencies to advocate that there be no further cuts to the foreign aid budget which has become progressively meaner since the 1950s under Robert Menzies.

What Bundu does is to bring the need for foreign aid into sharp focus. Brand de la Rey is an environmental researcher living in a remote region near the fluid border between South Africa and Mozambique. He lives a monastic sort of existence with his assistant Vusi, a Zulu who experiences life in a mystical sort of way which causes occasional conflict with Brand’s evidence-based way of looking at the world. At the hospital some distance away there is Vukili the (possibly not really qualified) doctor, a couple of nuns and Julia, a quixotic and headstrong woman who is volunteering in order to work off her feelings of worthlessness and rage about the politics of South Africa. Yes, there is an instant but fraught attraction between Brand and Julia, but trust me, it is not the focus of the book.

To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2013/05/02/bu...

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked up this book from the library as it looked interesting - but ultimately found it to be frustrating. It centres around a small South African medical centre as the staff try to deal with an influx of refugees fleeing famine in Mozambique. But conditions are not great in South Africa either and the centre soon starts struggling to deal with having to feed and treat all of the refugees.

This aspect of the plot alone could have been explored in more detail - but the book seems to focus more on our lead character Brandt and his relationships with his co-workers. The romance between him and the leading female character felt awkward, as if the author felt obliged to include a romance. There was also a potentially interesting thread about the tensions between Brandt and his black co-workers, learning to respect and trust each other after being brought up in a society that didn't see them as equal - but again, this aspect is not explored as much as it could have been.

It is a short book and all of these threads are squished and condensed rather than being given room to breathe. Characters verge on stereotypes: the drunken adventurer, the "difficult" unconventional woman etc.

Having said that, I did like that it showed off the multilingual aspect of South African society - including snippets of dialogue in Zulu (with translations). Equally, it would have been nice to have a glossary of some of those Afrikaans terms which were left untranslated and which this English reader is still not 100% sure what they meant. There were also a couple of times where the word order seemed strange, which I'm going to put down to choices by the translator.

Overall, it's a quick read, only just over 200 pages and I think that brevity hurts the book. It's okay, but a longer book would have helped us understand more about the characters and situation.

[Rachelle Seymore · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read, although a translation. A book full of strange characters. Everyone is involved in their own world and that which makes them cope, or do they? We sometimes also regard that which gives someone else satisfaction, as irrelevant, only because we don't necessarily understand it or it doesn't fit into our scheme of things.

[Lize · Rating 2 out of 5]

I expected much more. the story line was good but the writer failed to draw me into the story. I'm not sure if it was his writing or a problem of translation but i was not captivated once and really wanted to feel like i was with the characters in the book experiencing and seeing the hardship.

[Bianca Smyth · Rating 1 out of 5]

Found the book a bit difficult to get into and there wasn't much of a storyline to follow. Maybe it's because the book was translated from Afrikaans... but I couldn't really get into the book and then just found it difficult to follow and finish. Nice enough story, but could've been written better.

[Angelica Payne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable and heartfelt story of a difficult life in the African bush during 3 years of drought.

[Bee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book even though I did not really know in the beginning what to think about it. It's not clear to me if that is because I did not know the author or anything about the country and culture it was written in. Probably. There were also quite a few expressions which I had to look up because I could not make any sense of them.

What kept me reading was the woman the main character fell in love with. I think it is mainly a love story even though it is described as a hunger disaster and how the characters deal with it in the blurb of the book. But for me Julia, who tries desperately to save the starving people in her vicinity, was the driving character and the one who kept me reading.

I wanted to know more about her. I wanted to know if those two would come together and if there would be a happy end. In the course I learned a lot about South-Africa, about life in Africa and how crazy life in general can be.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ich habe dieses Buch genossen, obwohl ich zu Beginn nicht richtig wusste, was ich davon halten sollte. Vielleicht kam das daher, dass ich den Autoren nicht kannte und auch nichts von dem Land und der Kultur ueber das es geschrieben wurde wusste. Vermutlich. Da gab es auch einige Ausdruecke, die ich nachschlagen musste, weil sie mir ueberhaupt nichts sagten.

Was mich am lesen gehalten hat, war die Frau, in die sich die Hauptperson verliebt hatte. Ich denke diese Geschichte ist in erster Linie eine Liebesgeschichte auch wenn sie oft als Hungerdesaster und wie die Charaktere damit umgehen, beschrieben wird. Aber Julia, die verzweifelt versucht, die verhungernden Menschen in ihrer Umgebung zu retten, war diejenige, die mich am Lesen hielt.

Ich wollte mehr ueber sie wissen. Ich wollte wissen, ob die zwei zusammenkommen und ob es ein Happy End geben wuerde. Dazwischen habe ich Neues ueber Suedafrika, ueber das Leben in Afrika und wie verrueckt das Leben general manchmal sein kann, gelernt.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book could’ve gone in several different directions. It avoids being preachy but it makes its points well enough. What I particularly liked was the ending. Circumstances have galvanised these disparate individuals, created a necessary bond but once the crisis is over—their involvement in it at any rate—they no longer have sufficient reason to cohere and drift apart far too easily. You would think what they’ve been through was a life-changing experience but perhaps these people’s lives had already been so changed by what had happened in their pasts that nothing was ever going to bring them back. It certainly made me pause for thought because, at least as far as Africa goes, nothing has changed there. A few people manage to get saved but who’s to say that where they ended up will not face its own famine in two or three years? All part of what de la Rey calls “the Great Process”, not a Divine Plan but an admission that “Nature had no use for chance”.

You can read my full review on my blog here.

[Stephanie Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bundu is a beautifully-written novel by award-winning Afrikaans author, Chris Barnard. At times frustrating, appalling, heart-breaking and wonderful, Bundu exposes a side of Africa that few ever see. In the midst of it all, goodness rises from this motley crew of heroes and a romance builds as life boils down to its simplest forms.

Reviewed for TripFiction, the full text can be found here -
http://www.tripfiction.com/review/bea...

[The Book · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once I started reading, I didn't want to stop. I loved the solitude of the African wilderness and the assortment of people who found themselves there, and carved out some kind of life for themselves totally outside of most society. The starving famine refugees were almost an aside, something belonging to another world.

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love films which are those slow moving, deep rivers.....this is the book equivalent, an unexpected page turner. Read my full review on my blog

[Mischke Meyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Die skryf styl van Chris en die manier hoe hy die prentjie vir jou skets het dit vir my lekker laat lees. Maar sekere goed wat gese of in diepte beskryf is was vir my onnodig… ek wonder nogsteeds wat die bobbejaan vir hom wou sê.

[!Tæmbuŝu]

KOBOBOOKS

[Tessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting book,well written and atmospheric about Africa and its problems..

[Karen Smith]

strangely unique