Fiela's Child

by Dalene Matthee

Book Overview

Set in nineteenth-century rural Africa, Fiela's Child tells the gripping story of Fiela Komoetie and a white, three-year old child, Benjamin, whom she finds crying on her doorstep. For nine years Fiela raises Benjamin as one of her own children. But when census takers discover Benjamin, they send him to an illiterate white family of woodcutters who claim him as their son. What follows is Benjamin's search for his identity and the fundamental...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226510832
• ISBN13: 9780226510835
• Release Date: September 1992
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 360 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Best book I have ever read for school

I am currently in 11th grade and had to read this book for school. I must say, this is the best book I have ever read for school, I'd give it a 95%. It was so emotional that it put me in a funk for an entire day after reading it. Everything was described in such great detail that it came alive; and the characters were excellent, particularly Benjamin, Nina, and Selling. All the episodes in the book were great, particularly the final scenes where Benjamin had to sort out his feelings for Nina. The only flaw I felt the book had is that I wish it would've had more of a resolution with the whole Nina affair at the end, but this is only a minor flaw in this great book.

The Life & Struggles of the Kimoeties

I read this book last when I was in Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania, for my English class. I loved it, and could not put it down. Reading how Benjaman lives with Fiela and her family and then is suddenly thrust into his 'real' family, the Van Rooyens, and having to go through the struggles of finding out who he is, versus who others see him as. I loved how intense it got when he moved in with the Van Rooyins, and was coming to grips with being called Lukas, instead of Benjiman. If you like this book, you also might like the book written by an African-American woman named Octavia Butler, who wrote a book entitled "Kindred". It is similar as far as how the whites treated the blacks, and how segragation was so apparent .

a powerful story

There is so much to be learned and so much to be absorbed inwhen reading Fiola's Child. The perfect love and acceptance between amother and a child, although different races, the still-presiding conflicts between the black and white race, the need we all have as human beings to understand who we really are, the wreched and empty lives gained by those who take and do not give, and the heartfelt passion between a man and woman, thought at once to be siblings. The plot is thick, and the end is thought provoking. I think somebody should make a movie from this book. It's truly a must-read.

Heart wrenching scenes and some that make your veins boil!

It is a book that brings back the disharmony and racialistic view of the Whites aginst the Coloureds. And in this point of view we see the struggle of a Coloured mother protecting the safety and haven of her White child like a tigeress over her cub. This is a book about romance, about the individual hearts and philosophies; it is also about greed and chauvinism, yet most importantly Fiela's Child is centered and wrapped in but one word - love. The love of Benjamin over Fiela and Nina, Elias' love over money, the love of Nina towards nature and many more. Those who are sentimentalists and with a touch of feminism in them, you will experience a world so real and yet with such illuminated beauty.

Great Book!

This is one of the three books that I had to study for during my O-levels two years ago. I think that this book is absolutely fabulous with many heart wrenching parts, for example when Benjamin is taken away from Fiela and her loving family and given to the cruel Elias or when Benjamin finally gets the truth out from Barta the he is indeed not her son. The author also beautifully describes the feelings of the different characters, like the guilt that Benjamin felt when he realises that he loves his "sister" Nina in a romantic way. A must read for everyone!