A missionary’s wife leaves Regency England to minister to the
Khoikhoi in South Africa. Two hundred years later, her great-great
granddaughter leaves Africa to immigrate to the United States. Across
time and place, two immigrant stories begin to touch and entwine.
Old
New Worlds is a work of creative nonfiction that is both timeless
and timely. The narrative arc follows the life of Sarah Barker, who
left England with her missionary husband in 1815 to minister to the
indigenous Khoikhoi in pre-apartheid South Africa. Interwoven with
this immigrant story, and looking at it through the lens of
hindsight, is that of Sarah Barker’s great-great granddaughter,
Judith Krummeck, whose own immigration from South Africa to America
almost two hundred years later drew as many parallels as
distinctions.
The
intimate lives of these two women in their different times and places
are thrown into relief against the larger social issues of
colonialism and immigration, ethnic prejudice and genealogical roots,
which are as urgent and universal today as they have ever been. The
book is a combination of rigorous research, based on original
diaries, letters, and archives, and of lyrical imaginings, as the
author immerses herself in the pioneering life of her great-great
grandmother and comes to love her as a soul mate.
