Fading Footprints: In search of South Africa's first people

That summer afternoon, I had no way of knowing the book would radically alter my existence. Yet that proved to be the case. A wind that had begun to blow from a faraway place a long time ago had finally caught up with me.

So writes folklorist José Manuel de Prada-Samper about a chance discovery more than thirty years ago of an obscure book called Specimens of Bushman Folklore in a second-hand bookshop in England.

Part historical detective story, part memoir, Fading Footprints traces the autho...