Set in apartheid South Africa, Agaat portrays the unique
relationship between Milla, a 67-year-old white woman, and
her black maidservant turned caretaker, Agaat. Through
flashbacks and diary entries, the reader learns about
Milla's past. Life for white farmers in 1950s South Africa
was full of promise — young and newly married, Milla raised
a son and created her own farm out of a swathe of Cape
mountainside. Forty years later her family has fallen apart,
the country she knew is on the brink of huge change, and all
she has left are memories and her proud, contrary, yet
affectionate guardian. With haunting, lyrical prose, Marlene
Van Niekerk creates a story of love and family loyalty.
Winner of the South African Sunday Times Fiction Prize in
2007, Agaat was translated as The Way of the Women by
Michiel Heyns, who received the Sol Plaatje Award for his
translation.
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