Zebra Horizon

1975 - 1976Mathilda, 16, thinks there must be more to life than going to school in a small Bavarian town. Her parents refuse to emigrate to some fascinating exotic place, so she gets organized to become an exchange student.Rotary sends her to South Africa, a country she really doesn’t want to go to – apartheid and all – but it’s her only option.In Victoria Bay, a coastal town on the Indian Ocean, she gets confronted with every day apartheid life – from a white perspective – but she sees things with the eyes of someone who hasn’t been brainwashed by apartheid propaganda.She stays with an elderly, conservative Afrikaans couple; a young English speaking family with a book shop in which subversive activities are taking place, and with farmers in the Freestate. She goes to school, makes friends, acts in a play and soon finds out that in South Africa things are much more complicated than just being black or white. She tries her best to live her own truth.Denzil, an architecture student and mystery man crosses Mathilda’s path. The 2 of them fall madly in love and, by total coincidence, Mathilda discovers his secret.Winner of the South African Writers' Circle's Award for the best self-published book in 2005