Crimson Sands

The Story of Dirk Aruseb and the Bondelswarts

Jeremy Vearey

ISBN:

9780798184489

Publisher:

Human & Rousseau

Date Released:

September 2024

Price (incl. VAT):

R 360.00

Format:

Soft cover, 352pp


About this book:

Dirk Aruseb was seventeen years old when Abraham Morris fetched him from the Pella orphanage to join the Bondelswarts. Dirk couldn’t wait to conquer the accursed Schutztruppe alongside legendary Kaptein Jakob Marengo, successor to Hendrik Witbooi and Jonker Afrikaner. But when he arrived at Schansvlakte deep in Namaland, Dirk was warned that he first had to master many life skills before he could join the war: be humble, be patient, be merciful. Find your eland, tame your butcherbird.

But for Dirk war was an adventure – as long as he could kill the German enemy, he was content. It didn’t matter what commander Nana Kruiper, or Klara Morris, her second in command, tried to teach him: that the liberation struggle of the Bondelswarts meant more than protecting Namaland – their promised land – at all costs.

Crimson Sands is set in Namaland – from German-South-West Africa to the Cape Colony – from 1904 to 1922, when thousands of Bondelswarts were shot down by Jan Smuts’s fighter planes. It is an epic, panoramic war novel, traversing southern Africa from Tsumeb to Upington, from internment camps in Windhuk to the dry riverbeds of the Fish River Canyon. Jeremy Vearey conjures a mesmerising tale across an arid landscape of sand, shrub and dune, evoking voices and stories long gone.

Read extract

RELATED BOOKS

The Queer Book of Revelation

Siya Khumalo

Rubies and Rain

Busisekile Khumalo

Double Edged

Marina Auer

The Man Who Loved Crocodile Tamers

Finuala Dowling

The Fall

Jen Thorpe

Medusa (English)

Rudie van Rensburg

In the Midst of It All

Thabile Shange

Sex, Lies Declassified

Eva Mazza

Bantu Knots

Lebo Mazibuko

Still Breathing

Marita van der Vyver, Annelize Visser

Lucky Packet

Trevor Sacks

Paradise in Gaza

Niq Mhlongo

Love Marry Kill

Zukiswa Wanner

The Child

Alistair Mackay

The Resurrection

Sihle Qwabe

A Remedy For Death

Sarah Naidoo

The City is Mine

Niq Mhlongo

If You Save Me

Lisa-Anne Julien

I Did Not Die

Tebello Mzamo

Endgame

Wilna Adriaanse

Being Dianne

Qarnita Loxton

Mermaid Fillet

Mia Arderne

It’s me, Anna: The Full Story

Anchien Troskie

Of Fathers and Fugitives

SJ Naudé, Michiel Heyns

All That is Left

Kirsten Miller

The Troubled Times of Magrieta Prinsloo

Ingrid Winterbach, Michiel Heyns

Piranha

Rudie van Rensburg, Karin Schimke

Darlings of Durban

Shafinaaz Hassim

A Library to Flee

Etienne van Heerden

It Doesn't Have to Be This Way

Alistair Mackay

What's Wrong With June?

Qarnita Loxton

The Dao of Daniel

Lodewyk G. du Plessis, Michiel Heyns

Nine Hours

Lukhanyo Sikwebu

LOST PROPERTY

Megan Choritz

Sunshine and Shadows

Busisekile Khumalo

Being Shelley

Qarnita Loxton

Into the Sun

Takalani M

Single Minded

Marina Auer

Sex, Lies & Stellenbosch

Eva Mazza

The Heart Is the Size of a Fist

P.P. Fourie

A Soft Landing

Wisani Mushwana

Suitcase of Memory

A'Eysha Kassiem

Red Tide

Irma Venter, Karin Schimke

Christine

Eva Mazza

Leaving Word

Steven Sidley

Sex, Lies and Alibis

Eva Mazza

Man Down

Irma Venter, Karin Schimke

The Wanderers

Mphuthumi Ntabeni

Hard Rain

Irma Venter, Elsa Silke

Okay, Okay, Okay

Finuala Dowling