A clever, fresh and widely resonating novel whose international, globalizing streak rescues us from stale and overly provincial atmospheres.

Arianna Dagnino’s transcultural novel of a young woman’s struggle to recover from the brutal killing of her lover, cope with her family’s tragic past and find her way in post-Apartheid South Africa, is both moving and memorable. Dagnino, drawing on her years as a journalist in South Africa, de-layers the country’s conflicts, introduces some remarkable characters and takes the reader on a spellbinding journey.

Set in a South Africa trying to adjust to the recent end of apartheid, The Afrikaner is the compelling story of a fossil-hunter haunted by her family curse. Wise in the ways of paleoanthropology, viticulture, history, and the complex choreography of Boer, English, Zulu, Xhosa, Bushmen, and others, Arianna Dagnino’s novel fulfills its protagonist’s vision of art: “Imagination in motion.

Arianna Dagnino’s The Afrikaner is a multi-faceted book. The prose is precise and brilliant; and the punctuation – this humble dictionary of pauses – is as professional and fluid as to leave the reader relaxed. From time to time I felt compelled to stop and read a second time some beautifully carved sentences. In short, I dare to say that The Afrikaner is the first important gift the New Year brings to literary culture.

Set in the South Africa of thirty years ago, this is novel that spins a good tale while deftly exploring origins – personal, professional, and political – of the emerging South rainbow nation.

Arianna Dagnino has written an engaging story about one woman’s search for answers in her own life, both personal and professional. The author uses a realistic style and creates very believable characters whom we enjoy meeting. She finds poetry in the arid beauty of the Kalahari Desert and helps us to get to know remote landscapes. The realistic discussions about the social and political divisions in South Africa among the White, the Coloured and the Black communities have many parallels with the social conflicts in the US and Canada. What does multiculturalism mean in these different countries? Will Zoe locate evidence of early human ancestors? Will she find answers to her own troubled life?