Book cover of White Tribe Dreaming: Apartheid's Bitter Roots Witnessed By Eight Generations Of An Afrikaner Family

Book description

This is a history of the Afrikaner as seen through the history of one family, the de Villiers, who first moved to South Africa in the 1600s. The book traces the history of the family and the Afrikaner, showing how the Afrikaner acted at the turning points in their history…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

2 authors picked White Tribe Dreaming as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Untangling the roots of Apartheid is a thorny challenge, but Marq de Villiers’ approach—of telling the story of the Afrikaners, or South Africa’s “white tribe,” through one family’s complex and troubled history—does an excellent job of explaining the mentality that creates hateful systems of oppression. 

I highly recommend this powerful book.

From Trilby's list on South African identities.

I was born in South Africa almost 300 years to the day after the first white Europeans arrived to establish a permanent home at the tip of the continent.

This book begins with that arrival and follows the history of the author’s family through eight generations.

It is a history of individuals, related by bloodlines, but diverse in ambitions and actions, and seeks to trace and explicate how some of those first settlers and their descendants became the Afrikaners of the 20th century. 

While my own antecedents are less well documented, I like to believe that they are not…

If you love White Tribe Dreaming...

Book cover of These Blue Mountains

These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas,

A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.

German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…

Want books like White Tribe Dreaming?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like White Tribe Dreaming.

Browse books like White Tribe Dreaming

Book cover of Cry, the Beloved Country
Book cover of The Seed Is Mine: The Life of Kas Maine, A South African Sharecropper
Book cover of The Conservationist

Share your top 3 reads of 2025!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,340

readers submitted
so far, will you?

📚 If you like White Tribe Dreaming, you might also like...

Book cover of Foxfire in the Snow

Foxfire in the Snow by J.S. Fields,

It's a time of change, between magic and alchemy.

Born the heir of a master woodcutter in a queendom defined by guilds and matrilineal inheritance, nonbinary Sorin can’t quite seem to find their place. At seventeen, an opportunity to attend an alchemical guild fair and secure an apprenticeship with the…

Book cover of The Main Gate

The Main Gate by Yvonne Kjorlien,

Dr. Elise Marquette has spent years burying the past—until the past refuses to stay buried.

Hired to join Earth’s first interstellar contact team, she hopes the vastness of space will finally offer distance from the ghosts of war and the wounds left by a mother who never let her be…

5 book lists we think you will like!