Eye Brother Horn
From Commonwealth Book Prize Shortlisted Author Bridget Pitt

Finalist for the Tuscarora Award for Historical Fiction and the Sunday Times Literary Fiction Long List 

A Zulu foundling and a white missionary’s child raised as brothers in a world intent on making them enemies. A sweeping tale of identity, kinship, and atonement, set in 1870s South Africa, a decade of ruthless colonial aggression against the nation's indigenous people.

Moses, a Zulu baby discovered on a riverbank, and Daniel, the son of white missionaries, are raised as brothers on the Umzinyathi mission in 19th century Zululand, South Africa. As an infant, Daniel narrowly escapes an attack by a rhino and develops an intense corporeal connection to animals which challenges the religious dogma on which he is raised. Despite efforts by his adoptive mother to raise the boys as equals, Moses feels like an outsider to both white and Zulu society, and seeks certainty in astronomy and science. Only through each other do the brothers find a sense of belonging.

At Umzinyathi, Moses and Daniel are cushioned from the harsh realities of the expanding colony in neighboring Natal—where ancient spiritualism is being demonized, vast natural beauty faces rampant destruction, and the wealth of the colonizer depends on the engineered impoverishment of the indigenous. But when they leave the mission to work on a relative’s sugar estate and accompany him on a hunting safari, the boys are thrown into a world that sees their bond as a threat to the colonial order, and must confront an impossible choice: adapting to what society expects of them or staying true to each other.

With elements of magic realism, Eye Brother Horn is the heart-wrenching story of how two children born of vastly different worlds strive to forge a true brotherhood with each other and with other species, and to find ways to heal the deep wounds inflicted by the colonial expansion project.

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Eye Brother Horn
From Commonwealth Book Prize Shortlisted Author Bridget Pitt

Finalist for the Tuscarora Award for Historical Fiction and the Sunday Times Literary Fiction Long List 

A Zulu foundling and a white missionary’s child raised as brothers in a world intent on making them enemies. A sweeping tale of identity, kinship, and atonement, set in 1870s South Africa, a decade of ruthless colonial aggression against the nation's indigenous people.

Moses, a Zulu baby discovered on a riverbank, and Daniel, the son of white missionaries, are raised as brothers on the Umzinyathi mission in 19th century Zululand, South Africa. As an infant, Daniel narrowly escapes an attack by a rhino and develops an intense corporeal connection to animals which challenges the religious dogma on which he is raised. Despite efforts by his adoptive mother to raise the boys as equals, Moses feels like an outsider to both white and Zulu society, and seeks certainty in astronomy and science. Only through each other do the brothers find a sense of belonging.

At Umzinyathi, Moses and Daniel are cushioned from the harsh realities of the expanding colony in neighboring Natal—where ancient spiritualism is being demonized, vast natural beauty faces rampant destruction, and the wealth of the colonizer depends on the engineered impoverishment of the indigenous. But when they leave the mission to work on a relative’s sugar estate and accompany him on a hunting safari, the boys are thrown into a world that sees their bond as a threat to the colonial order, and must confront an impossible choice: adapting to what society expects of them or staying true to each other.

With elements of magic realism, Eye Brother Horn is the heart-wrenching story of how two children born of vastly different worlds strive to forge a true brotherhood with each other and with other species, and to find ways to heal the deep wounds inflicted by the colonial expansion project.

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Eye Brother Horn

Eye Brother Horn

by Bridget Pitt
Eye Brother Horn

Eye Brother Horn

by Bridget Pitt

Overview

From Commonwealth Book Prize Shortlisted Author Bridget Pitt

Finalist for the Tuscarora Award for Historical Fiction and the Sunday Times Literary Fiction Long List 

A Zulu foundling and a white missionary’s child raised as brothers in a world intent on making them enemies. A sweeping tale of identity, kinship, and atonement, set in 1870s South Africa, a decade of ruthless colonial aggression against the nation's indigenous people.

Moses, a Zulu baby discovered on a riverbank, and Daniel, the son of white missionaries, are raised as brothers on the Umzinyathi mission in 19th century Zululand, South Africa. As an infant, Daniel narrowly escapes an attack by a rhino and develops an intense corporeal connection to animals which challenges the religious dogma on which he is raised. Despite efforts by his adoptive mother to raise the boys as equals, Moses feels like an outsider to both white and Zulu society, and seeks certainty in astronomy and science. Only through each other do the brothers find a sense of belonging.

At Umzinyathi, Moses and Daniel are cushioned from the harsh realities of the expanding colony in neighboring Natal—where ancient spiritualism is being demonized, vast natural beauty faces rampant destruction, and the wealth of the colonizer depends on the engineered impoverishment of the indigenous. But when they leave the mission to work on a relative’s sugar estate and accompany him on a hunting safari, the boys are thrown into a world that sees their bond as a threat to the colonial order, and must confront an impossible choice: adapting to what society expects of them or staying true to each other.

With elements of magic realism, Eye Brother Horn is the heart-wrenching story of how two children born of vastly different worlds strive to forge a true brotherhood with each other and with other species, and to find ways to heal the deep wounds inflicted by the colonial expansion project.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781946395764
Publisher: Catalyst Press
Publication date: 01/31/2023
Pages: 278
Product dimensions: 5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Bridget Pitt is a South African author and environmental activist who has published poetry, short fiction, non-fiction and three novels (Unbroken Wing, Kwela, 1998; The Unseen Leopard, Human & Rousseau, 2010; Notes from the Lost Property Department, Penguin, 2015). Two were long listed for the Sunday Times Literary Awards. Her second novel was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize (2011) and the Wole Soyinka African Literature Award (2012). She has recently co-authored a memoir of the spiritual wilderness guide, Sicelo Mbatha (Black Lion: Alive in the Wilderness, Jonathan Ball, 2021). Her short fiction has received a Commonwealth nomination and has been published in anthologies in South Africa, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Eye Brother Horn is her first book to be published by a North American publisher.

Read an Excerpt

*D*

The gun changes everything.

It comes to Daniel on their thirteenth birthday, a present from his father: A twelve bore Westley Richards shotgun, given to the reverend by a trader who’d travelled through the district. Moses gets a Sheffield Bowie hunting knife with a stag horn handle and a sheath you can strap around your shoulder. It’s a fine knife, but Daniel can tell by the way Moses looks at his gun that he thinks that his brother has the better present. That’s the first thing that changes. When Moses looks from his knife to Daniel’s gun, Daniel hears the click of something shifting in their connection, like the cocking of the hammer before a trigger is pulled. 

Moses knows all about guns from The English Mechanic– he and umfundisi have long discussions about percussion caps and gunpowder and calibre. Daniel has never cared for guns. He stands holding it awkwardly under his father’s expectant gaze and Moses’ studied indifference.

Their father takes them onto the hill to learn how to shoot. It’s a cold cloudless day in early winter, the grass turning gold on the hills, the air so clear that you can see a thin blue line of the sea in the east. Umfundisi puts old tins in an umvumvu tree for them to shoot at. 

Daniel loads the gun clumsily, sabotaged by his father’s eagerness and Moses’ cool scepticism. As he pulls the trigger, the gun bucks hard against his shoulder, making his eyes water. His ears ring from the explosion, his nose burns from the gunpowder. At first his bullets go all over, but just as he’s about to give up, something shifts. As if the gun’s been fighting him, but suddenly begins to trust him – it fires firm and smooth, the bullet following his eye straight into the middle of the tin. Moses narrows his gaze, and turns away. 

Umfundisi laughs, and slaps him on the back. ‘Well done, my boy! You’re a born marksman, just like your mother! Now you can help us keep down the vermin and hunt for the pot.’ 

Daniel feels his smile stiffening. When his father says vermin, he means the leopards, caracals and jackals that go for the chickens and goats, or the porcupines, monkeys and bushpigs that raid the vegetables. And when he says hunt for the pot he means buck or guinea fowl. He looks down at the gun that is so heavy and beautiful in his hands and realises that he’s been given this gift so that he can kill animals. 

‘You have a go now,’ he says, passing the gun to Moses. 

*M*

Moses watches Daniel clean the gun, the candle light gleaming dully on the barrels as he pushes the rod up and down them to clear the powder, flushes them out then dips the cleaning rag in oil.

‘You have to dry it before oiling,’ he says. ‘Otherwise it rusts.’

Daniel glances up at him. Usually he defers to his brother, but now something mulish sets in his mouth.

‘I think I know how to clean a gun.’

‘Do you? When have you ever cleaned a gun? Umfundisi always asks me to do it. Because he knows I do a better job.’

‘You’re just jealous.’

‘I’m not. I don’t care about your gun.’

‘Then why do you care how I clean it?’ 

‘I don’t. Let it rust, for all I care. You’ll never use it to kill anything, anyway. Remember how you cried when Kazi shot the leopard. You’re just a baby.’

Moses had wanted to cry too. He remembers the dead leopard with its tongue out and its black-spotted golden fur soaked in blood. Kazi bending over it, a lamp swinging in her hand. She’d straightened up, grinning. ‘I got him!’ she’d declared, wiping the hair from her brow and leaving a bloody streak across her forehead. Her face was ghoulish in the lamplight, alien and repulsive to him. 

But Moses hadn’t cried. He hadn’t cried since Gogo left. 

Daniel drops the gun barrels and lunges at him. They wrestle on the floor, until Moses gets the upper hand. He sits on top of Daniel, twisting his arm behind his back until Daniel yelps in pain. They often wrestle playfully, but tonight there’s a dark fury in Moses’ grasp, and when he lets Daniel go, he’s contrite to see the red bruising blooming on his brother’s arm. 

‘Why shouldn’t my father give me a gun?’ Daniel demands, rubbing his arm. ‘He’s my father. It’s my birthright.’

Birthright. The word erupts between them, like the sudden blast of a trumpet, like a call to arms. Moses flinches. My father. My birthright.

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