Critics' Opinion:
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Published Apr 2014
220 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Paperback original.
Learning to survive in the harsh interior of Southern Africa, a former slave seeks shelter in the hollow of a baobab tree. For the first time since she was a young girl her time is her own, her body is her own, her thoughts are her own. In solitude, she is finally able to reflect on her own existence and its meaning, bringing her a semblance of inner peace. Scenes from her former life shuttle through her mind: how owner after owner assaulted her, and how each of her babies were taken away as soon as they were weaned, their futures left to her imagination. We are the sole witnesses to her history: her capture as a child, her tortured days in a harbor city on the eastern coast as a servant, her journey with her last owner and protector, her flight, and the kaleidoscopic world of her baobab tree. Wilma Stockenström's profound work of narrative fiction, translated by Nobel Prize winner J.M. Coetzee, is a rare, haunting exploration of enslavement and freedom.
"Starred Review. This mini-masterpiece is less a novel than an intimate monologue illuminating the nature of slavery, oppression, womanhood, identity, Africa, and nature itself... 25 years after its introduction to English-speaking audiences, this tale still proves moving and vibrant." - Publishers Weekly
"...a meditation on humanity, mortality and time. A challenging, compelling work for readers who are willing to give it the concentration it demands." - Kirkus
"An astonishing achievement." - The Star (South Africa)
"A truly remarkable contribution, both for the lyrical quality of its prose and for its boldly imaginative theme." - World Literature Today
"Lyrical ... dramatic ... epic. Of the living, active poets in Afrikaans she is the greatest." - André Brink, author of Philida and A Dry White Season
"A compelling, richly textured fable." - Christopher Hope, author of Shooting Angels
"Let me immediately say that this book gripped me from the very first paragraph and I could not put it down till I closed it late last night, deeply moved, with the realization: Today I read a great work." - Audrey Blignault, South African Broadcasting Corporation
This information about The Expedition to the Baobab Tree was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Wilma Stockenström is one of the most important authors writing in Afrikaans. She has published 5 novels, 7 collections of poems, and one play. She received the Hertzog Prize for Poetry in 1977 and again in 1992. She was awarded Italy's Grinzane Cavour Prize in 1988 for The Expedition to the Baobab Tree. She has also had a successful career as an actress on stage and in film. She has been living in Cape Town since 1993. The author lives in Rapier, South Africa.
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