Daphne Rooke was a South African author celebrated for her novels that delved into the intricate themes of life in Southern Africa. Her writing style was marked by a keen insight into the human psyche and a precise rendering of the environment. Rooke frequently explored motifs of displacement, identity, and the search for belonging. Her work is valued for its depth and literary merit.
Set in the cane fields of Natal, Ratoons is a portrait of a beautiful but barbaric land. The narrator Helen Angus, like her Indian friends Leela and later Amoya, is caught up in a world of contrasts where violence and hatred vie with love, passion and the always exotic loveliness of the landscape.
It is Zululand in the 1870s; a bloodthirsty Zulu king is embroiled in bitter war with the English. Witches dwell in every cave and wizards are abroad in every village. The son of the chief of the Tshanini tribe, Benge, is a frail cripple, but he is believed by some to be a magic dwarf, a person set apart, with strange powers. This superbly written novel, originally published in 1957, is the story of Benge, leader of men, caught in a body too small for his heart. It is a tale that bridges the emotional barrier between the reader and the Zulus with greater passion and precision than any factual accounts can achieve.
First published in 1952, Mittee was an international bestseller. Set in late nineteenth-century Transvaal, it dramatizes the intense, ambiguous love-hate relationship between Selina, a young colored servant girl, and her privileged white mistress, Mittee, and explores the roles forced upon the two women, fierce rivals for the attentions of the same man. Juxtaposing violence and sexuality the author crosses gender and racial boundaries in this powerful exposure of a patriarchal, puritanical and divided society.