Finding oneself on the wrong side of history

Alan Twigg's review of my novel The Afrikaner in the spring issue of "BC Booklook" goes to the core of the predicament faced by the protagonist of the story, Zoe du Plessis, a young female scientist (33) who grew up in South Africa in a deeply entrenched white family: "Zoe is little concerned with money, status or personal appearance. Instead she seeks belonging."

Later on, Twigg thus describes and comments on Zoe's field expedition in the Kalahari Desert in Namibia in a hunt for fossils and for herself: "In the field, near an encampment of twenty some Bushmen people, in charge of men under strenuous circumstances, able to have a brief shower only once a week, Zoe proceeds to explore her place in South African society, contemporary and otherwise, with a candour that makes The Afrikaner increasingly engaging."

At the end of his review Twigg hints at the film transposition of Zoe's story, which would allow to show southern Africa's majestic beauty, its cultural complexity and historical fault lines.

You can read the whole review here:

https://issuu.com/bcbookworld/docs/spring_2020_issue

Arianna Dagnino, The Afrikaner. A Novel  (Guernica, 2019)

Zoe's Story, "The Afrikaner,"​ Goes International

A woman scientist ventures into a scorching desert to search for fossils and confront the dark shadows of her Afrikaner heritage. Set between South Africa and the Kalahari Desert in Namibia, the story of palaeontologist Zoe du Plessis, the Afrikaner of the book title, has the ability to cross borders and resonate with the hearts and souls of readers far away from the hot plains of southern Africa. Because all people have a history and all nations have bloodlines. They all get shaken up and suffer trauma. But they all learn to cope with the past, learn from it and find a resolution. This is the underlying message running through The Afrikaner, which after its English publication will soon be available in German, Arabic, Italian and Afrikaans. Covid-19 permitting, the German translation will be launched at the 2020 edition of the Frankfurt Book Fair in October.

In the meantime, the author of the novel (Arianna Dagnino) and her writing partner (Ernest Mathijs), both based in Vancouver, have completed the screenplay based on Zoe's story and started pitching the script to interested producers and film makers. In their view, the screenplay would profit from a synergetic triangulation between South Africa, Europe and North America.

Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXmKFWMLgKM

Book at Guernica's Website: https://www.guernicaeditions.com/title/9781771833578

Book Website: https://blogs.ubc.ca/afrikaner/

Listen to Chapter 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rogbi6kmmkw&feature=youtu.be