Author brings book to Oudtshoorn

Update

OUDTSHOORN NEWS - Barbara Townsend, author of Ida's Line visited Oudtshoorn last week to introduce the novel to readers.

She told the attendees that she chose Oudtshoorn as the background for the novel because her grandfather lived here and the book was sparked by events he told her about.

Ida's Line is a historical novel that portrays a young woman, Ida Joubert, coming of age in Oudtshoorn in the 1930s.

It was a time when prejudice against people of colour as well as against the Jewish community was increasing and this forced Ida to question many of the issues with which she grew up. This brings her into conflict with her family and in particular with her father.

The book centres around Ida's relationship with a teacher, Reuben, who is a coloured man and when she introduces him to her parents the conflict increases. The book covers the period from 1930 to 1948 and captures the lives of several characters who are finely woven together. Carmel Rickard, a writer and columnist, describes Ida's Line as a "Poignant, minutely-researched, closely observed story that threads through forgotten injustices of South Africa in the 1930s and 1940s."

Townsend says she spent ten years on the novel and much of that time was spent on research of which a large part was done in Oudtshoorn and in particular at the CP Nel Museum. She also explained that she wrote the whole manuscript of more than 500 pages by hand and then typed it into the computer. "The typing took longer than the writing because I literally use one finger to type."

The author and her husband, Mark, have been living in Botrivier for several years and she is currently working on a book about Robben Island during the time it served as a leper colony. She is not sure when the book will be available but says she has already completed most of it. For more information about Ida's Line and where it is available contact Barbara Townsend on 083 315 9211.

Some of the people who attended the launch of Ida's Line are from the left: Clifford Coombe, Barbara Townsend (author), Lida Blignaut, Alta le Roux, Marion McCann, Benadette Lipschitz and Ilse Meyer. Photo: Hannes Visser