BOOK REVIEW
A story exploring belonging, allegiance
Author recalls life on a sugar-cane farm and how his parents fled SA fearing no future for whites in Africa
Hazara — Elegy for an African Farm John Conyngham Shuter & Shooter The word Hazara in the title of this fascinating portrait of settler life in Natal is not an exhortation that is yelled as the panga whacks the sugar cane. Rather, it is the name of a British army regiment in which one of the author’s ancestors served. One of the imperatives of an Anglo-South African family was to maintain "standards" and keep Africa at bay. So as John Conyngham notes drily, the whites who settled in Natal in the 19th and 20th centuries tended to name their properties after places or things that reminded them of their earlier lives in far off places. Through successive generations, European settler men fought in the Crimean, Anglo-Zulu, Anglo-Boer, first and second world wars — and if they survived, they farmed. The author has ingeniously reconstructed his family history to show how Hazara came into their hands and then became a lucrative operation employing a hundred farm hands, bankrolling an envia...
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