"Home Ground" a novel by Lynn Freed was given to me by a cousin from Australia, who, like myself is an ex-South African. I try to read everything I can find which has been written by South African novelists post WW2. How Lynn Freed escaped my radar I don't know, but I am so grateful to Marion for giving me this book. It was chosen by The New York Times Book Review as one of it's notable books of the year for 1986.
It is a novel of family life in Durban during the 1950s-60s as seen through the eyes of the youngest of three daughters of a bohemian Jewish family. The story takes the reader through ten years in the life of the family, with all the attendant tensions and anxieties of adolescence. The greater dramas of the political situation in South Africa at that time - Sharpville, the POQO threat etc - are reduced to mere background murmurs. I suspect that it is a very autobiographical novel. I enjoyed it as a novel of adolescence, but never related to it as I did to Barbara Trapido's wonderful book "Frankie & Stankie" which is set in the same place at the same time. None-the-less it is a great addition to my collection . ( )