A powerful novel that throws a spotlight on
a past that is all too often simplified or airbrushed out of existence (Review
by Margaret von Klemperer, courtesy of The Witness)
Botswanan writer Lauri Kubuitsile has set
her latest novel, But Deliver Us from
Evil, in the last quarter of the 19th Century, a time when traditional
societies, missionaries and Boers attempting to escape from the English in the
Cape were colliding in Botswana, with predictably disastrous results.
The story opens when Nthebolang’s childhood
is shattered after her father is accused of witchcraft and killed. She and her
mother become outcasts until they find shelter under the protection of Kgosi
Secele 1. He was a real king who allowed missionaries into his land and
converted to Christianity, and in the novel finds work for Nthebolang and her
mother at the mission house.
In a parallel strand of the story, the
Koranna people of the Gariep are battling for their land with the Griqua and
the Boers, and, after a failed raid, Beatrice, who is very light-skinned, is
taken off to an orphanage in Cape Town, mistaken for a kidnapped white child.
Intractable and wild, she is eventually married off to a missionary – a nasty
piece of work – and sent off to Ntsweng where she meets up with Nthebolang.
In essence, Kubuitsile’s novel is the story
of two independent and feisty women whose rebellion against the norms of their
time and society is driven by what has happened to them in childhood and whose
lives are shaped by the clash of cultures they are living through. This clash
creates a violent world, where friendships and alliances are fluid and belief
systems are used and abused in a desperate struggle for power and understanding.
The historical background is an important
component of the story and Kubuitsile manages to avoid the obvious division of
groups and people into good and bad. While the missionaries are not spreading
peace and light, whatever their official motivation may be, the traditional
society is no pastoral bliss either, riven as it is by cruelty and injustice.
Both Beatrice and Nthebolang are flawed, fully realised characters and while
the ending is maybe a little too pat,
But
Deliver Us from Evil is a powerful novel that
throws a spotlight on a past that is all too often simplified or airbrushed out
of existence. - Margaret von Klemperer
Published by Penguin. ISBN
978-1-4859-0382-6
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