Fading Footprints

'That summer afternoon, I had no way of knowing the book would radically alter my existence. Yet that proved to be the case. A wind that had begun to blow from a faraway place a long time ago had finally caught up with me.'

So writes José Manuel de Prada-Samper about a chance discovery more than thirty years ago of an obscure book called Specimens of Bushman Folklore in a second-hand bookshop in England.

Part historical detective story, part memoir, Fading Footprints traces the author's journey into the magical folklore of the /xam hunter-gatherers of the Upper Karoo. Through archival research and on field trips in South Africa, De Prada-Samper reveals the tragic scope of  the genocide of the /xam San by European colonisers. However, he is also able to humanise the /xam as he delves into the work of two Victorian researchers, who recorded the stories of San prisoners in Cape Town over more than a decade in the late 1800s.