Reviews
Kirkus Reviews STARRED REVIEW A gorgeous, devastating song of freedom that will inevitably be compared to Toni Morrison'sBeloved. But it deserves to stand on its own. Publishers Weekly Poet Christiansë (Castaway), born in apartheid-era South Africa and now living in New York City, channels the torturous history of South African slavery in her debut novel. Sila van den Kaap, whom Christiansë discovered in an early 19th century document, is a slave serving hard labor at the Robben Island prison colony after murdering her own son, Baro. As Sila breaks and hauls stones, evades the attentions of the prison guards and cares for her small children, she casts her mind back to the daily indignities, fleeting pleasures and larger injustices that have defined her life since, as a young girl, she was brought to South Africa from Mozambique. Addressed primarily to the spirit of her deceased son, Sila's absorbing, lyrical narrative is circular: she alternates between exhausted lament, seething rage and scripture-tinged poetic soliloquy ("their sins are like unto a plague of locusts that eat not fields but bodies and hearts"), and returns repeatedly to the broken promise of her freedom, granted in the will of one of her mistresses,Oumiesies("old Missus"), and disregarded by Oumiesies's cruel son, Theron. After many passionate digressions, Sila alights, finally, on the death of Baro. In the final pages, she movingly addresses "the daughters and sons of my generations"-those now living with slavery's legacy. Library Journal STARRED REVIEWThe story unfolds in fits and starts and reads like a confession to a soulmate. This stream-of-consciousness style gives readers an intimate if disturbing peek into the mind of a fierce 19th-century slave woman...Impossible to put down, this work deserves a place beside such classics as Toni Morrison'sBelovedand Edward P. Jones'sThe Known World. Highly recommended. ForeWord This Week ...Unconfessedby Yvette Christiansë takes place in South Africa in the Dutch-speaking Cape Colony in the 1820s. Sila was taken from Mozambique to South Africa as a child. She was promised freedom in the will of her mistress Oumiesies. But at her death, her cruel son Theron refuses to honor his mother's wishes. Sila is sold to a series of cruel masters and is eventually imprisoned for murdering her son, Baro. As she works in the rock quarry on Robben Island prison, she speaks to Baro, telling him her disjointed life story and the details of her days in the prison. Gradually through Christiansë's poetic stream-of-consciousness narrative, the reader learns how she came to be in her situation and the guilt she feels at the thought of her children's suffering. Booklist Little has been written about what it was like to be a slave in South Africa under the early white settlers. This debut novel tells it through the first-person, present-tense narrative of Sila, once a slave, now a prisoner on Robben Island off Cape Town in the 1820s....the history is authentic, and Sila's brave, desperate voice reveals the vicious brutality as well as surprising discoveries of love and friendship. Readers of Toni Morrison's classicBelovedwill recognize the story of a mother driven to save her children at any cost. Historic Novels Review Sila is a strong, likable character who survives adversities that would destroy most people. She has a few happy times to remember, but of course the tone of any book about slavery is mainly distressing. Readers who prefer a linear storyline may struggle to puzzle out the sequence of events, as Sila's memories come and go in a poetic, stream-of-consciousness fashion. Christiansë's word choice and syntax effectively con
