The narrator of this beautiful novel is an old slave woman who lived in a harbour town on the east coast of Africa and was taken by her fourth owner on a journey inland. The only survivor of the failed expedition, she shelters in the hollow trunk of a boabab tree where she relives her earlier existence in a state of increasing isolation. How she was captured in her hometown and taken away as a child, her life in a harbour city on the eastern coast as servant to different masters, her journey with her last owner and protector, and her life in the boabab tree. Translated from Afrikaans by J.M. Coetzee, the novel received worldwide acclaim, and Italian, Dutch, French, Swedish, German and Hebrew translations followed. The Italian edition won the Grinzane Cavour award in 1988. Also available in Afrikaans as Die kremetartekspedisie.