Softness of the Lime by Maxine Case
Softness of the Lime is a captivating love story about a Dutch slave owner, Geert, and his slave, Lena, set in the 1700s in the Cape Colony. Born free in the Highlands of Madagascar, Lena is sold into slavery and transported to the Cape, where she is bought by Geert's wealthy father. The emotionally damaged Geert, who takes over his deceased father's estates and businesses at the age of twenty-two, falls in love with Lena. Their cloistered relationship produces a daughter, who remains within the confines of the house until Geert marries to rescue himself from financial hardship and loss of social status, and his new wife demands that the child be removed from the household. But Geert refuses to free Lena, and she remains in the house, where she simultaneously loves and loathes her master. Softness of the Lime is a compelling account of degrees of love in a hostile landscape. It captures the appalling losses, isolation and scarred hearts of slaves, and it tells of traditions old and emerging, at a time when competition for ownership of almost everything in the Cape was at its peak. Spanning more than eighty years, the novel concludes in 1854, twenty years after the abolition of slavery in the Cape Colony.
Maxine Case made her literary debut with All We Have Left Unsaid, a work that was awarded the 2007 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book (Africa), and in the same year was the joint winner of the Herman Charles Bosman Prize. Her most recent book, Papwa: Golf’s Lost Legend, was shortlisted for the 2016 Alan Paton Award. A fellow of the Ford Foundation’s International Fellowship Program, she has been named an honorary fellow in writing by the University of Iowa, Hong Kong Baptist University, and City of Asylum/Pittsburgh, and her work has been translated into several languages, including Dutch, Japanese and Mandarin. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from the New School in New York and lives in Cape Town.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781415209332 |
| ISBN 10 | 1415209332 |
| Title | Softness of the Lime |
| Author | Maxine Case |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Penguin Random House South Africa |
| Year published | 2017-05-17 |
| Number of pages | 272 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |