Hello says the mountain

In the opening pages of Isna Marifa’s debut novel, Sapaan Sang Giri, a young Javanese girl awakes to the sound of her father’s voice intruding on her dreams. ‘Come, my girl, get up!’ he calls. ‘Come and see. The ship’s coming into port.’ The year is 1751, and father and daughter have been at sea for months, deep in the hold of a Dutch ship as it crosses the ocean between Batavia and the southern tip of Africa. Life in her Javanese village now no more than a distant memory, Wulan and her father Parto are about to embark on a life of servitude to a wealthy Dutch family in Cape Town, joining the ranks of the bondsmen and women who would become the ancestors of today’s diasporic community of ‘Cape Malays’ in multicultural South Africa.