Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk Review

Here's what TBBP creator Lori Feathers has to say about Agaat

Why You Should Join TBBP For Our Next Long Read

The Big Book Project kicks off its next deep dive on March 24! Over the next two months, we’ll be exploring Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk, translated by Michiel Heyns. Read on to hear Lori Feathers, creator of The Big Book Project, share her thoughts on this powerful novel.

One of the most extraordinary novels that I have ever encountered. Agaat delves the intense, decades-long relationship between two women—Milla an affluent Afrikaans landowner and Agaat, a black orphan who Milla takes in, rescuing the tiny, deformed girl from a certain life of abuse and poverty. Milla sees herself as Agaat’s savoir; her, at times, loving and often harsh education of the girl--her Christian duty. And in fact for seven years Milla and Agaat are inseparable despite the community’s disapproval and the outright hostility of Jak, Milla’s husband. Later, without explanation, Milla relegates twelve-year old Agaat to the role of servant and moves her out of the main house. And when Milla and Jak have a child of their own, it is Agaat who forms a mother bond with the boy, not Milla. Author van Niekerk exposes all of the nuances of the women’s fraught and volatile relationship with language that is brutally raw, honest, and uncommonly beautiful. A masterpiece.