Moederland: Nine Daughters of South Africa (Paperback)

Compelling . . . traces South Africa's turbulent past through the contrasting lives of nine women in [Cato Pedder's] prehistory. From 1600s Cape Town, then a remote outpost of the Dutch East India Company to her aunt Petronella who falls in love with a 'coloured' man, she unpacks the cargoes of her Afrikaans heritage - Caroline Sanderson, Editor's choice, Bookseller

Fascinating and engrossing . . . part memoir, part account of [Pedder's] own lineage and part exploration of what it is to be wedded through one's family to race exploitation and conquest - Literary Review

Informed by impressively thorough research . . . Exploring the past, bringing it to vivid life with wonderful prose, [Pedder] intersects the lives of her ancestors with her own thoughts and experiences . . . But this is not another whinging apologia by a white author. Pedder writes with perspicacity and sensitivity . . . Moederland provides more questions than answers, but that is not a flaw. It is the questioning that makes this book valuable . . . We need more books like this, we need more detailed research, more people allowing themselves to be uncomfortable and to question - Observer

These women's stories come down to us in fragments, having been written out of 'recorded history' . . . Moederland proves Cato Pedder to be uniquely qualified to tell that story - Independent

Through the lives on nine women - Pedder traces the impact of white Afrikaner identity of 400 years of South African History . . . Fragment by fragment, she brings her forebears to life . . . a deeply personal book - The Spectator