Mittee

by Daphne Rooke

First published in 1952, Mittee was an international bestseller. Set in late nineteenth-century Transvaal, it dramatizes the intense, ambiguous love-hate relationship between Selina, a young colored servant girl, and her privileged white mistress, Mittee, and explores the roles forced upon the two women, fierce rivals for the attentions of the same man. Juxtaposing violence and sexuality the author crosses gender and racial boundaries in this powerful exposure of a patriarchal, puritanical and divided society.

Genres: Africa

Paperback

First published January 1, 1951

About the author

Daphne Marie Rooke (née Pizzey) was a South African author of works such as Mittee, Ratoons and Wizards' Country. She also wrote travel articles and books for children set in India, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.

Reviews

[Barbarac · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was like a gothic novel set in pre-Boer South Africa. It was all passion, love-triangles,violence, rape, racism. Wow, nothing was missing from this novel, really. Of course, it was written in another era...so the characters are almost caricatures, very bad, or very good. Very smart or very dumb.
I felt transported to lazy summers in my youth when I would read the novels accumulating dust in my grandmother's summer house. Romance and adventures, all with the same covers as this book, and really with similar stories, just in different parts of the world. So I had fun reading it, I'm sure my grandma would have too.

[Monica. A · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sudafrica, 1890. Mittee e Selina sono una bianca e una mulatta. Una è la padrona e l'altra la serva.
La storia è tutta qui. Scritto nel 1952 da un autore africano, è un po' sul genere "Il colore viola", non perché gli somigli, ma non so perché me lo ha ricordato. Questo romanzo è a tinte molto meno forti, più leggero, a tratti sarcastico. A narrare è Selina, la serva. Grazie a lei conosciamo gli eventi del tutto normali che si alternano nel corso degli anni. Il perno della storia è l'amicizia fra le due bambine, poi una volta divenute adulte, la narrazione si fa più cupa i temi più forti lo impongono,  la guerra, le gelosie, le violenze...
Un libro che si legge piacevolmente, soprattutto in una pigra e afosa estate.

[Bethanylallen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Random read. Sometimes the subject matter of a book is so outside my realm of knowledge that I have a hard time deciding if I liked it or not. That is the case here. Set in pre-Boer War South Africa it chronicles the relationship between a white girl and her colored (read: multi-racial person in S. Africa) servant girl. It was readable, but I couldn't get a grip on the racial and gender politics of the story.

[Jane Mettee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this novel set in South Africa by a South African author. The characters were well developed and relationships interesting. I seem to like these old (1952)historical novels. My husband picked up this hard cover in a used book store. It was an international best seller when it was released 60 plus years ago.