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  • Published: 1 July 2010
  • ISBN: 9781407073095
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 319

The Hunter And The Whale



A gripping tale of murder and intrigue in a vanishing Africa

This is the story of a South African boy, Peter, who grows to manhood through a hard course of physical and emotional experiences.

The scene, a heroic one, is set both on sea and on land. Peter is exposed to the conflicts set up by other characters, chief amongst whom are a dedicated and fanatical whaling captain, a Zulu stoker, a famous white hunter and his daughter. He learns how men can become obsessed by greed and the will to power; and he witnesses the struggle of natural man to come to terms with the demands of contemporary life.

Peter's developing relationship with captain and crew; the fury and beauty of the chase; the fanaticism of the two great hunters - these are the leading motifs in Laurens van der Post's stirring narrative. His remarkable knowledge of whaling, and the force of his imagination sounding deeper then leviathan himself, carry the reader irresistibly forwards.

  • Published: 1 July 2010
  • ISBN: 9781407073095
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 319

About the author

Laurens Van Der Post

Laurens Van Der Post was born in South Africa in 1906, the thirteenth of fifteen children in a family of Dutch and French Hugeunot origins. Most of his adult life was spent with one foot in Africa and one in England. His professions of writer and farmer were interrupted by ten years of soldiering in the British army, serving with distinction in the Western Desert, Abyssinia, Burma and the Far East. Taken prisoner by the Japanese, he was held in captivity for three years before returning to active service as a member of Lord Mountbatten's staff in Indonesia and, later, as Military Attache to the British Minister in Java.

After 1949 he undertook several official missions exploring little-known parts of Africa, and his journey in search of the Bushmen in 1957 formed the basis of his famous documentary film and The Lost World of the Kalahari. Other television films include All Africa Within Us and The Story of Carl Gustav Jung, whom he met after the war and grew to know as a personal friend. In 1934 he wrote In a Province, the first book by a South African to expose the horrors of racism. Other books include Venture to the Interior (1952), The Heart of the Hunter (1961), and A Walk with a White Bushman (1986). The Seed and the Sower was made into a film under the title Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, and, more recently, A Story Like the Wind and A Far-Off Place were combined and made into the film A Far-Off Place.

Sir Laurens Van Der Post was awarded the CBE in 1947 and received his knighthood in 1981. He died in 1996.

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