ACROSS THE KALA PANI

273pp., maps, paperback, Cape Town, 2022

In 1909, four women sail from Madras, India, to colonial Natal in search of a better life on the sugar plantations.

Shevlyn Mottai was born in Pietermaritzburg in 1976. She is descended from indentured Indians from Arcot in South India who arrived in Durban on the ship Umzinto in 1909. She works as a deputy headteacher and English teacher at a secondary school in England. Across the Kala Pani is her debut novel.