Kalahari Passage
Koba, a young San girl, is kidnapped from her home among the Kalahari bushmen. She is taken to live with Marta and Deon Marias, who believe they can provide a better life for Koba, knowing her own parents were killed by white hunters. Over the years, a mutual bond of love grows between her and the Marias couple. She learns how to read and write in both English and Afrikaans and travels everywhere with them, often hidden from view.
Several years pass, and she falls in love with Mannie, a young Afrikaner boy. They are caught in bed together, a punishable crime in apartheid South Africa in 1964. Koba is sentenced without trial and sent for repatriation back to her homeland. Her fate appears to be certain death when she discovers her guard has given her up to Andre Marias, the same white man who murdered her parents. She is subjected to horrible abuse and torture, bound in the back of his transport truck. When Andre leaves the truck unattended, she is befriended by Twi, a nomad, who helps her to escape. When her flight is discovered, she becomes the prey of an enraged, heinous and coldhearted hunter.
Koba’s harrowing journey of survival is emotional and gripping. Miller captures Koba’s innermost thoughts and enduring strength with emotional precision, as if it were a memoir. Candi Miller, who was born in Africa, expresses the inherent evils of apartheid South Africa firsthand. Kalahari Passage gives the reader a realistic and sensitive look at a society and fading culture few experience.
