CRIMSON SANDS, the story of Dirk Aruseb and the Bondelswarts

351pp., map, paperback, Cape Town, 2024

Historical novel set in Namaland. Based on real events.

The Bondelswarts (now the ǃGamiǂnun, a clan of the Nama people) resisted the loss of their land to the colonists and there were several uprisings in the early years of the 20th century. In May 1922 Gysbert Hofmeyr, the South African administrator of the region, sent in troops and ruthlessly crushed the rebellion that broke out over the payment of a dog tax. South African scholar and anti-apartheid activist Ruth First described the Bondelswarts shooting as "the Sharpeville of the 1920s".

Major-General Jeremy Vearey, former Deputy Provincial Commissioner of the Western Cape South African Police Service, is the author of  the autobiography Jeremy Vannie Elsies and Into Dark Water, a police memoir. Crimson Sands is his first novel.