Blood’s Inner Rhyme

In Blood’s Inner Rhyme, celebrated poet and anti-apartheid activist Antjie Krog battles with her mother, Dot Serfontein, a formidable and charismatic character who was herself a noted writer in her day but also an ardent supporter of apartheid. And of its architect, Hendrik Verwoerd, the perceived saviour and visionary who saw an oppressed and ridiculed people rehabilitate themselves from their collective trauma and negate their victimhood through a fierce adherence to discipline and Christian nationalism – as well as by settling the land. To live, learn and love the land is the start of language, Krog learns from her mother. Both are powerful recorders of the physicality of their Kroonstad family farm, and they love and admire each other, but cannot contend with each other’s politics. Using diary entries and letters, her mother’s frail carers’ nursing notes, and interviews with locals (real and imagined) Krog stares Serfontein down and manages to take her leave of her mother, extricating herself with wry compassion and exasperation, but also the deepest love. A masterful examination of familial bonds, loss, loneliness, ageing and decline.