- Writer
- Born on 6 March 1947
- in Fort Hare, South Africa
- Member of the SA SCBWI
Synposes
Tajewo and the Sacred Mountain - Juventus; 1983.
Drought lies on the plains of Maasai country. Only the rain charm guarded by the hermit on Mount Lengai can release the rain.
Tajewo and Meromo make the perilous journey to the sacred mountain to find the charm.
Quest for the Sacred Stone - Oxford University Press; 2000.
Tajewo and Meromo are now married men. Meromo’s wife has a son but Tajewo’s beautiful Loiyan is childless. One day she is seen by a wicked spirit whom Tajewo and Meromo offended on their way to Lengai. The Lord Moloch plans a terrible vengeance on Tajewo’s people, which leads them on a quest to the Mountain of Oldoinyo Oibor.
Lion King and Eagle Prince (Not yet published).
Third book of Tajewo series. Tajewo and his warrior son, Lemei, travel to Ethiopia where the Lion King’s son, Tamarat, is imprisoned on a mountain top. The machinations of a wicked councillor who wishes to usurp the old king’s power are about to destroy an ancient kingdom. With the help of the holy Aragavi and of wise women, Tajewo and his band set out to rescue Tamarat.
The Wings of Eredu (Completed but not yet published).
The waters of the sacred lake Tinuet that nourish the plains of Elmogorian are stopped. Drought and the sinister kargs ravage the land and drive away its inhabitants as slaves. Five young men of the Crane, Eredu, venture north and encounter an alien civilisation and dangers unguessed by the innocent tribes of Elmogorian.
Cicely van Straten
Cicely van Straten grew up in East and South Africa. Her formative years were spent mostly in Kenya, where her grandparents were settler-farmers, and in Uganda where her father worked at Makerere University.
Her family’s African roots and her grandfather’s anthropological researches have given her a fascination with African folklore and mythology. Her Master’s dissertation, “The Fairytale as Paradigm of inner Transformation: a comparative study of European and Southern African Tales” examines the rich folklore of South Africa, which has been lost to many of its children during a time of rapid cultural transition.
From a young age she was absorbed by fantasy writing and acknowledges a debt to the works of the Grimms, Andrew Lang, George MacDonald, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkein, R. Lancelyn Green, Padraic Colum and Rosemary Sutcliffe among others. She would like to see fantasy literature that is truly African in its ambience and setting emerge for the children of Africa.
Recently Published Books
The Warrior’s Star, Queillerie; 1995
Quest for the Sacred Stone, Oxford University Press; 2000
A Pot of Magic, Bard; 2005
Illus. by Joy Pritchard from Tajewo and the Sacred Mountain, Juventus; 1983
Extract from The Wings of Eredu (unpublished)
Then from the darkness behind the fire, a bird rose over water. A voice of great beauty soared above the men’s singing. Torches appeared; a bier was being carried, shoulder high, to the raised centre-place. On it a man was sitting, a bent and twisted hunchback. His legs were misshapen racks of water-weathered wood folded under him. His head hung to one side under the grotesque hump of his spine. His seamed face was calm and his eyes very bright. His long, weathered fingers were caressing a harp and his voice was the most beautiful thing they had ever heard.
Across the river, almost on the very bank, seethed an army of kargs. Behind them spread the horns of Bokul, rank upon rank of fighting men, their shields black and ochre-red, their tall spears black-collared…. As Tuarep stared at the enemy a wave of anguish passed through him. He remembered Gela, her dark eyes filled with tears of longing and her hesitant joy when he had held her in his arms at their betrothal. His own sharp longing flared in him and with it a deep regret. Then her image was shattered by a hard, defiant blast from Kerion Kulal’s warhorn and a dark roar from Buya Bokul’s army. A great bull of a man shot his arm into the air and shook his long spear and ten thousand voices answered him. To the thud of war drums and the crashing of spears on shields, Bokul’s forces advanced, driving before them a vast army of kargs.