“When I shut my eyes and my ears fell deaf to the sounds around me, I could visualise my old home: the rustle of the fanlike leaves of the breadfruit tree as they danced in the breeze that rolled down the dormant volcano…”

It is 1751, and nine-year-old Wulan finds herself half a world away from her home in Java: torn from her adored grandparents, her chattering cousins, the sounds and smells of the landscape that she loves. She and her father, Parto, are enslaved on a Cape Colony farmstead, with little hope of returning home. In this new world they hold fast to their Javanese identity and beliefs while, through their shared suffering, they forge bonds with the multicultural community whose descendants would come to be known as the Cape Malays.

Isna Marifa’s debut is the first novel to focus on the Indonesian experience of slavery in South Africa, illuminating this history of unfreedom through a timeless story of love, loss, and longing.

“An original and captivating story…a new and promising literary voice.” Keith Foulcher [Honorary Associate of the Department of Indonesian Studies, University of Sydney]

“This novel enables me to walk in the footsteps of my Malay forefathers from the ancient world of the Nusantara…” Mogamat Kammie Kamedien [Cape Malay historian and heritage activist]

“A meaningful and flowing narrative.” Putu Oka Sukanta [poet and novelist]

"This is an important novel: it reminds us that history is also made by the activities and stories of ‘little’ people, those who find it difficult to determine their own destinies." Feby Indirani [journalist and writer]