Moederland is a courageous and modern appraisal of what it means to be descended from the
people who created the ultraracist apartheid system in South Africa. Illuminating its turbulent
history through the lives of her female ancestors it is a history of South Africa like no
other told from the perspective of women long silenced in the historical narrative. It asks
what were they doing while white supremacy was constructed? In Moederland Cato Pedder travels
the centuries from the 1600s when Cape Town was a remote outpost of the Dutch East India
Company to the kraal of a Zulu king in the 1800s before doubling back to Europe and then
culminating with the English Quaker aunt who defies apartheid to marry across the colour line.
As anti-racist campaigners call out the statue of Jan Smuts in Parliament Square Cato
painstakingly excavates the long-forgotten life stories of the women of her prehistory
unpacking the legacy of her Afrikaans heritage and bringing their collective shame into the
light. Moederland brilliantly sits at the borderline between personal history and memoir and
shares themes with The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal The Wife's Tale by Aida
Edemariam and Maybe Esther by Katja Petrowskaja both of which use unknown forebears to throw
new light on the troubled past. It will also appeal to readers of Damon Galgut's Booker Prize
winning novel The Promise.
