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Department of English Language and Literature

Featherstream

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

Featherstream is a romantic suspense novel set at the southernmost tip of Africa during the Second World War. Returning to her father's farm at Cape Agulhas for the university holidays, Anna van der Vliet stumbles on a clandestine operation to provision enemy U-boats. Her dilemma of whether to betray family or country is further complicated when she falls in love with German naval commander Thomas von Eisenheim. Anna goes on to uncover a plot by Nazi Germany and the right-wing Ossewabrandwag organisation to blow up the Union's parliament buildings and install a pro-German Afrikaner government. The novel's landscape ranges from the remote fynbos plains of Agulhas in the Southern Cape, through the Moravian hamlet of Elim to Cape Town. Based on extensive historical research, it explores the deep ideological tensions in South Africa between supporters of the pro-war government of General Jan Smuts and Doctor Daniel Malan's Purified National Party, which were mirrored in communities and families across South Africa. The driving force of the story is a young woman's struggle to reconcile divided loyalties and emerge from the emotional stranglehold of her overbearing father.

Degree

thesis:*
Grantor dc:publisher.institution
Department of English Language and Literature
Year dc:date.issued
2016

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Sutherland, Ian
Advisor dc:contributor.advisor
  • Van Heerden, Etienne

Rights

Language dc:language.iso
eng

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Handle dc:identifier.uri
http://hdl.handle.net/11427/20606
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/20606

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
University of Cape Town
Base URL
open.uct.ac.za/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
related terms
citation

Sutherland, Ian. Featherstream. Department of English Language and Literature, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/20606