When Ingi Friedlander travels to Yearsonend in the rugged interior of South Africa to purchase a statue, its eccentric sculptor, Jonty Jack, does not want to sell – he says it was not his creation, but simply appeared miraculously. Ingi decides to stay and try to win Jonty’s trust, but soon realises that the townspeople suspect she has come to seek a different treasure – the legendary wagon of gold brought in by defeated Boer soldiers. Gradually she prises open the secrets of the past, secrets of greed, racism and vaulting ambition, whose key lies with the Italian POW Mario Salviati – deaf, dumb and now blind. Watched over by a very earthy angel and long dead humans, Ingi forces a resolution with the past and faces up to her own future.
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Reviews
A wondrous tale, weaving magic realism and history, in which Van Heerden captures the stark beauty of the Karoo and its people.
Extraordinary ... Mario Salviati is a compelling and moving creation.
Rich in insight and hope ... an impressively colourful picture of a fascinating and contradictory country.
If ever a book captured the static charge of a sunbaked landscape, it's Etienne van Heerden's magical fifth novel ... The tales [Ingi] hears are romantic, tragic, funny and bloody, preserved like fossils in sandstone
It's easy to see why Van Heerden is being described as an Afrikaans Marquez ... [he is] an exceptionally gifted writer.
A complex tale, full of richly drawn characters ... fascinating
Magical ... a new literary star is emerging
Dazzling storytelling magically weaves the fantastical with the everyday and lends a compelling power to the author's meditations on history, art and life.
Engrossing