Overview

Boer Boy is the touching true story of a ten-year-old farmboy's traumatic but fascinating experiences during the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. When Charles du Preez and his father are discovered hiding in the mountains of their eastern Free State farm, they are taken prisoner by the English and transported in open coal trucks to Durban. From there they begin a harrowing journey aboard the SS Aurania to the prisoner-of-war camps of Umballa and Solon in India, where Charles is the youngest inmate. Meanwhile, Charles's mother and siblings, apprehended while desperately fleeing the Khakis during Lord Kitchener's destructive 'scorched-earth' campaign, have been sent to the infamous Winburg concentration camp. Based on an account Charles wrote later in life as well as other notable oral and documentary sources, including a diary kept by Charles's mother during the war, Boer Boy tracks the Du Preez family's wartime experiences. It culminates in Charles and his father's repatriation to South Africa, where the family is reunited and returns home to the ruins of their farm to start again.

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9781770221383

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Chris Schoeman was born in Somerset East and has master's degrees in history from the University of Port Elizabeth and Colorado State University. He has worked as a historian/conservationist and journalist, and has authored and co-authored several books. These include District Six: The Spirit of Kanala, the bestselling autobiographies of Springbok legends Frik du Preez (2004) and Os du Randt (2006), Slow Death: Memoirs of a Cricket Umpire (with Rudi Koertzen, 2010) and The Number 10s: South Africa's Finest Flyhalves, 1891-2010 (2010).

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