The Thirstland

W. A. de Klerk is a Cape Afrikaner who has alreadypublished a useful and sympathetic study of Afrikanerhistory and culture, The Puritans in Africa. This bookis set in the form of a historical novel. Told in the firstperson by Will Jordan, a Cape Coloured, it recountsthe leading role he played in the saga of one of thelast of the Afrikaner treks, from the Transvaal to thedry lands of southern Angola and northern Namibia,in search of the final elusive utopia. De Klerk claimsthe story is based on the actual events of the trek to'Upingtonia' in the late 1880s. He would also claima deeper significance for the story as, in the words ofthe blurb, an 'allegory of man's search for happiness,suffering pain and anguish in the search...'. Thesedeeper resonances to some extent detract from whatis at one level an engaging story set in the well-realizedbackground of the harsh landscape of south-westAfrica.....there is much of interest in it, as story, asdescription and as the attempt by a verligte Afrikanerto establish Afrikaners as a truly African people andto recall them to the desert-formed purities of theirtrekker origin.