Book Recommendation

I recently read an excellent psychological novel “Cape Fever” by Cape Town writer Nadia Davids about the struggle for power between two women in an unnamed post-WWI colonial town in 1920.  Soraya Mata, a 19-year-old Malay woman, is servant to an elderly widow, the patronizing Mrs. Hattingh, who has lost her wealth but not her privilege as a white person. Believing that Soraya is illiterate, she writes letters on her behalf to her boyfriend, but the words are not Soraya’s, thus depriving the Malay woman of her own story-telling voice. While a number of South African books have dealt with the “maids and madams” trope, often holding up madams to ridicule, Davids’ empathy allows readers to understand the older woman’s complexities, even as they root for Soraya.