Crimson Sands

The Story of Dirk Aruseb and the Bondelswarts

Jeremy Vearey

ISBN:

9780798184489

Publisher:

Human & Rousseau

Date Released:

September 2024

Price (incl. VAT):

R 360.00

Format:

Soft cover, 352pp


About this book:

Dirk Aruseb was seventeen years old when Abraham Morris fetched him from the Pella orphanage to join the Bondelswarts. Dirk couldn’t wait to conquer the accursed Schutztruppe alongside legendary Kaptein Jakob Marengo, successor to Hendrik Witbooi and Jonker Afrikaner. But when he arrived at Schansvlakte deep in Namaland, Dirk was warned that he first had to master many life skills before he could join the war: be humble, be patient, be merciful. Find your eland, tame your butcherbird.

But for Dirk war was an adventure – as long as he could kill the German enemy, he was content. It didn’t matter what commander Nana Kruiper, or Klara Morris, her second in command, tried to teach him: that the liberation struggle of the Bondelswarts meant more than protecting Namaland – their promised land – at all costs.

Crimson Sands is set in Namaland – from German-South-West Africa to the Cape Colony – from 1904 to 1922, when thousands of Bondelswarts were shot down by Jan Smuts’s fighter planes. It is an epic, panoramic war novel, traversing southern Africa from Tsumeb to Upington, from internment camps in Windhuk to the dry riverbeds of the Fish River Canyon. Jeremy Vearey conjures a mesmerising tale across an arid landscape of sand, shrub and dune, evoking voices and stories long gone.

Read extract

RELATED BOOKS

It’s me, Anna: The Full Story

Anchien Troskie

All That is Left

Kirsten Miller

Double Edged

Marina Auer

Making A Killing

Bonnie Espie

Okay, Okay, Okay

Finuala Dowling

Man Down

Irma Venter, Karin Schimke

Nine Hours

Lukhanyo Sikwebu

Paradise in Gaza

Niq Mhlongo

Sunshine and Shadows

Busisekile Khumalo

If You Save Me

Lisa-Anne Julien

Hard Rain

Irma Venter, Elsa Silke

Piranha

Rudie van Rensburg, Karin Schimke

Darlings of Durban

Shafinaaz Hassim

The Dao of Daniel

Lodewyk G. du Plessis, Michiel Heyns

Being Dianne

Qarnita Loxton

The Wanderers

Mphuthumi Ntabeni

In the Midst of It All

Thabile Shange

The Resurrection

Sihle Qwabe

Christine

Eva Mazza

The Fall

Jen Thorpe

Being Shelley

Qarnita Loxton

Still Breathing

Marita van der Vyver, Annelize Visser

It Doesn't Have to Be This Way

Alistair Mackay

The Man Who Loved Crocodile Tamers

Finuala Dowling

Of Fathers and Fugitives

SJ Naudé, Michiel Heyns

The Queer Book of Revelation

Siya Khumalo

The Heart Is the Size of a Fist

P.P. Fourie

What's Wrong With June?

Qarnita Loxton

If The Dead Could Talk

Juliette Mnqeta

Bantu Knots

Lebo Mazibuko

A Remedy For Death

Sarah Naidoo

Sex, Lies Declassified

Eva Mazza

LOST PROPERTY

Megan Choritz

Three Echoes

Marina Auer

Medusa (English)

Rudie van Rensburg

Into the Sun

Takalani M

A Library to Flee

Etienne van Heerden

Suitcase of Memory

A'Eysha Kassiem

A Soft Landing

Wisani Mushwana

The City is Mine

Niq Mhlongo

Single Minded

Marina Auer

Mermaid Fillet

Mia Arderne

Red Tide

Irma Venter, Karin Schimke

Love Marry Kill

Zukiswa Wanner

Sex, Lies and Alibis

Eva Mazza

Rubies and Rain

Busisekile Khumalo

I Did Not Die

Tebello Mzamo

Sex, Lies & Stellenbosch

Eva Mazza

The Child

Alistair Mackay

Endgame

Wilna Adriaanse