Life's Soiled Red Earth

A harrowing and heart-breaking story of a five-year-old girl abandoned by her family in the midst of Apartheid South Africa. Marlene Neuman is removed from her hometown, below the slopes of Table Mountain, Cape Town, to a missionary, hundreds of miles away, at the northern border of South Africa. In the harsh unknown surroundings, she must fend off abuse from those she recognized as her own and bend to the rules of a Catholic orphanage. Her journey to adulthood is filled with twists and turns, as fate carves the pathway further away from stability and peace.

She experiences the devastation caused by the government’s segregation rules in every aspect of her life and in the bonds she forms with those around her. Like many other South Africans of that time, she eventually finds herself drawn into the struggle against the unjust laws of her country. She finds and loses loved ones, until she must take refuge, when the brutal South African security forces hunt her. As they begin to close in on her and the man she realises she loves, is it too late?

Bernadette Kiewiet was born in Claremont, Cape Town 14 June 1961, but grew up in Bokmakierie, Athlone. She matriculated in 1979, then from 2017, passed both Creative Writing and Copyeditor/Proofreading courses at UCT-Getsmarter, before she completed her mentorship in fiction- writing with John-David Linnegar (author and training facilitator). Her short story The Crash was published in the ‘Write My City Short Story Anthology.’ At home, the 61-year-old writer, partakes in her family duties, yoga, and gardening. She plans to write numerous more stories, because she believes there are too many left untold.