Book description
When Frieda first met Min, with her golden hair and ivory bones, what
struck her most was that Min was wearing a pair of African sandals, the
sort made out of old car tyres. She was a silent, unhappy girl, dumped
on Frieda's exuberant family in Johannesburg for the summer of 1964 so
that her mother could go off with her new husband. In a way, Min and
Frieda were both outsiders - Min, raised in the bush by her idealistic
doctor father, and Frieda, daughter of a poor Jewish saxophone player
who lived almost on top of a native neighborhood. The two girls, thrown
together - the 'white kaffir' and the poor Jewish girl - formed a
strange but loyal friendship, a friendship that was to last even through
the terrible years of oppression and betrayal during the time of South
Africa under Apartheid. Pamela Jooste was born in Cape Town, where she
still lives. She is the author of four critically acclaimed novels:
Frieda and Min, Like Water in Wild Places, People Like Ourselves and
Dance with a Poor Man's Daughter, her first novel, which won the
Commonwealth Best First Book Award for the African Region; the Samlam
Literary Award, and the Book Data South African Booksellers' Choice
Award.
