Heartfruit. Ingrid Wolfaardt

Heartfruit is both a sweeping saga and a revisionist “farm novel”. It traces the story of a South African fruit farm and the farm’s transition from a traditional white-held ownership to a new dispensation of collective ownership (where the traditional roles of worker and landowner are redefined) and explores the economic relationships and legal issues surrounding farming and the export of fruit from South Africa. The story stretches from the 1970’s to approximately the turn of the 20th century.The novel begins with Izak, the main male protagonist, a fruit farmer travelling in Europe in search of funding and new markets, here at the end of the 1990’s. The latter half of this decade has seen the opening up of trade for individual growers and agents in South Africa to access international markets, without governmental control through the old Marketing Board system. He has an accident in the home of his estranged brother in Holland, whereby he lands up in hospital. Here he has time to reflect and consider his private history as well as his future and the fragile prospects of the new farm structure he has implemented.