Book description
Vividly set against the backdrop of 19th century India and the British-owned sugarcane plantations of Natal, written with great tenderness and lyricism, Children of Sugarcane paints an intimate and wrenching picture of indenture told from a woman's perspective.
Shanti, a bright teenager stifled by life in rural India and facing…
Why read it?
1 author picked Children of Sugarcane as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Few know that thousands of villagers from India were shipped to various colonies as indentured laborers after slavery ended in Britain’s territories.
Lured by promises of rich earnings they could send home, they replaced slaves and worked in similar conditions of hardship. In South Africa’s Colony of Natal, Indian indentured laborers did backbreaking work on sugar plantations, and their stories have seldom been told. In particular, no one has revealed the hidden stories of women plantation workers. In this heartbreaking yet lyrical novel, Joanne Joseph (tracing her own grandmother’s history) breaks the mold with her story of Shanti, who runs…
From Helen's list on Historical novels by Southern African women.
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