GOLDEN GIRL

Author: Lorato Trok with Wendy Hartman

Publisher: Jacana

Reviewer: Nancy Richards

Sometimes less is so more. When something is around 25,000 years old, how do you even start to tell its story! And the life of a language is an especially tough tale to tell in just a few words. But every history has a present – and in the case of the N/uu language, hopefully not an ending in sight – yet.

Keeping it alive, in living memory at least, is Ouma Katrina Esau whose mother taught it to her as a child, at a time when it was banned by the cruel farmer on the farm where she and her family lived. Now in her 91^st year Ouma Katrina has made it her mission in life to teach N/uu to as many people as possible – starting with her granddaughter Claudia. Golden Girl is the short story about this long language said to be South Africa’s oldest and part of the heritage of the indigenous San people from the Tuu family. It begins when Ouma Katrina was born – ‘a warm yellow baby the colour of the sun’ and closes in Rosedale in Upington, at the school that Ouma started and where she and Claudia hope to pass the gift of N/uu.

It has been both simply and lovingly written by award-winning author Lorato Trok in partnership with Wendy Hartman and illustrated by Elizabeth Pulles. There are many, many more people who have been involved in this project, in making this book come alive – and surely many ancestors who must be looking down on it, and smiling.