TABLE TALK
The rot beneath the sweet plantation life
A new novel shines a light on the women who were brought to the then Port Natal colony as indentured labour — and on how the British fuelled racial distrust between Indian and Zulu
23 January 2022 - 00:00
Joanne Joseph’s novel, Children of Sugarcane, puts the spotlight on a subject hardly mentioned in mainstream literature: the female indentured labourers who the British shipped from India to the colony of Port Natal in the 19th century.
Much of the research Joseph’s book is based on was for her PhD in African literature, which focuses on the depiction of female indentured labourers in South African indenture literature...
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