Philida ~ Andre Brink

One of the Man Booker Prize long list, this is the story of a slave in South Africa in the 19th century, set in the period leading up to the end of slavery. Interestingly, the author is a descendant of the family who ‘owned’ Philida, and his familiarity with the country and its history are apparent in the details of the government actions and the turbulence among the Boer settlers as slavery is about to be banned.

The book begins in first-person format, and opens with the compelling line: “Here come shit.”

Philida, who has walked many miles from the property of her owners, must confront an unhelpful public servant ‘with deep furrows in his forehead, like a badly ploughed wheat field, and a nose like a sweet potato grown past itself’ with her complaint of rape by Francois, the son of her master.

She had decided to lay the complaint, having borne four children to Francois, because he has reneged on his continual promise to buy her freedom – he is to marry a white woman, and Philida and her children are to be sold to a distant landowner to avoid any ‘offence’ to the wife.

Here come shit, indeed – the reaction of the Brink family to the sheer audacity of a slave’s action in lodging such a report, and Philida’s own feelings about the white man she is clearly quite fond of, make compelling and often cringe-inducing reading.

The story follows the gritty fight for her children’s future amid the insecurity of everyone’s struggle to find a new life, and Philida’s physical and emotional journey away from her familiar life is well worth following.

 

Helen