Dance With A Poor Man's Daughter

(Paperback)

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Description

The funny, sad, exotic, colourful world of the Cape Coloureds as told through the eyes of an eleven-year-old girl. 'My name is Lily Daniels and I live in The Valley, in an old house at the top of a hill with a loquat tree in the garden. We are all women in our house. My grandmother, my Aunt Stella with her hopalong leg, and me. The men in our family are not worth much. They are the cross we have to bear. Some of us, like my mother, don't live here any more. People say she went on the Kimberley train to try for white and I mustn't blame her because she could get away with it even if we didn't believe she would.' Through the sharp yet loving eyes of eleven-year-old Lily we see the whole exotic, vivid, vigorous culture of the Cape Coloured community at the time when apartheid threatened its destruction. As Lily's beautiful but angry mother returns to Cape Town, determined to fight for justice for her family, so the story of Lily's past - and future - erupts. Dance with a Poor Man's Daughter is a powerful and moving tribute to a richly individual people.

Reviews

Immensely moving and readable * The Times *
Moving and funny...A brave and memorable debut * Observer *
I could hardly put this book down * Cape Times *
Tough, smart and vulnerable ... emblematic of an entire people * Independent *
Highly readable, sensitive and intensely moving ... a fine achievement * Mail and Guardian, South Africa *

Author Bio

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.