Mara and Dann

1999, paperback, 408pp, mooi ex., 19.5x13cm

 

'We are in Africa, now known as Ifrik. The northern hemisphere has succumbed to a new Ice Age. Two children, Mara and Dann, set forth on an odyssey towards the greener country on the chilly southern edge of the Mediterranean. As in all folk tales based on a journey, they pass through ordeals. They meet huge beetles whose pincers can bisect a child, lizards that can carry off a woman in their jaws, both as adventure story and as ecological fable, displays all the vision of a muscular mind. I hope everyone reads it and it wins all the prizes.' VICTORIA GLENDINNING, 'Literary Review'