In Die Skadu Van ’n Legende

About the Book

This book is part of a set of four volumes (Part 1 in Afrikaans; Part 2, Volumes I to III mostly in English), entitled 'In the Shadow of a Legend.' Collectively they tell the story of six generations of a prominent Afrikaner family, direct descendants of the legendary Anglo-Boer War president Paul Kruger. While admittedly of limited interest to anyone who is focused only on the infamous Apartheid legacy of South Africa, this highly personalized pre-Apartheid history nevertheless provides extraordinary insight into the tortured lives of ordinary Afrikaners in the wake of their crushing defeat in the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902), which would undoubtedly be a contributing factor to the later social engineering policies and consequent political turmoil in the country. Part 2 presents the actual correspondence between Casper and Lily Kruger during the period 1916 to 1924, in the wake of the selective unification of some of the disparate parts of this subcontinent into the Union of South Africa under the British Empire. Edited by their grandson, Bernard Botes Kruger, these courtship letters of two young people from opposite sides of the political divide, written in their own hand (1,500 pages, in English), offer a glimpse into their life and times, serving as a poignant reminder to what extent this part of the world has inexorably altered over the past century.

About the Author

Bernard Botes Kruger is a sixth-generation descendant of the Anglo-Boer War president Paul Kruger, growing up in South Africa during the turbulent Apartheid era. Born in 1952, he spent his formative years in a rural area designated a part of the Zulu homeland. At the age of 18 he was incarcerated in a Pretoria military prison for refusal to perform compulsory military service in that country's 'terrorist' war, being held for a total of 15 months in solitary confinement. After his release, he devoted the next decade to working as a full-time religious volunteer, often among African tribes in some of the remotest parts of Southern Africa. He is first and foremost a linguist who is best described as a 'hyperpolyglot,' speaking no fewer than ten languages. His life's passion has been the promotion of multiculturalism, as opposed to nationalism, to which end he has set himself the goal of visiting every country on earth. Since 1986, he has been a resident of the United States, now living and writing in Sausalito, California. He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of South Africa (UNISA), and a Master's and Ph.D. from Warnborough College (Ireland).