In the Heart of the Country (1977) is an English language novel by J. M. Coetzee which delves in the complex relationships that form between the colonizer and the colonized. It takes place on an isolated farm in South Africa told through the perspective of an unmarried white woman who takes care of her father. She clashes with him when he takes an African mistress, causing a rift that leads towards vengeance, violence and a muddling of her own relationship with the farm workers. Frequently events are re-told by her with a different outcome.
In the U.S.A. the book was published as From the Heart of the Country. A motion picture adaptation, Dust, was directed by Marion Hänsel in 1985.
Famous quotes containing the words heart and/or country:
“Lest, once more wandering from that heaven,
I fall on some base heart unblest,
Faithless to thee, false, unforgiven,
And lose my everlasting rest.”
—John Wilmot, 2d Earl Of Rochester (1647–1680)
“The Statue of Liberty is meant to be shorthand for a country so unlike its parts that a trip from California to Indiana should require a passport.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)