Recessional for grace by Marguerite Poland

Recessional for grace by Marguerite Poland

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Summary

When a post-graduate student of African languages, looking for an angle for her doctoral thesis, comes across an obscure and incomplete lexicon of metaphorical names for indigenous Sanga-Nguni cattle by long-dead academic.

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Recessional for grace by Marguerite Poland

When a postgraduate student of African languages, looking for a topic for her doctoral thesis, happens upon an obscure and incomplete lexicon of metaphorical names for indigenous Sanga-Nguni cattle by a long-dead academic, she knows, instinctively, that she has found her subject. She is given access to his papers, his catalogue of index cards and field notes recorded in a remote valley in South Africa in 1946. Among his many photographs is a small print of a delicately patterned cow. In finding it she has, unwittingly, discovered a cipher to his life. In exchanging objectivity for passion, and in defiance of her supervisor's instructions, the linguist becomes the biographer. She begins to reconstruct the life and the lost love of a man long forgotten, to recreate a world to which she can restore him - and, in doing so, restore herself. Fact and supposition, instinct and intuition become blurred, making a new truth ...
SKU Unavailable
ISBN 13 9780143024545
ISBN 10 014302454X
Title Recessional for grace
Author Marguerite Poland
Condition Unavailable
Binding Type Book
Publisher Penguin Random House South Africa
Year published 2004-08-04
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.