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:
“Some let me make you of the heartless words.
The heart is drained that, spelling in the scurry
Of chemic blood, warned of the coming fury.
By the sea’s side hear the dark-vowelled birds.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“... most reform movements in our country have been cursed by a lunatic fringe and have mingled sound ideas for social progress with utopian nonsense.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)