Paul Kruger's Dream

The first extended piece of literature written by a black South African, Robert Grendon's Paul Kruger's Dream, is an extraordinary work. Masterfully written by one of the few black men to have been educated in Latin and Ancient Greek in the nineteenth century. The poem was composed while Grendon was an auxiliary in the British Army during the Second Anglo-Boer War.

The poem details South Africa's hostile racial relations while beautifully rendering the country's landscapes. Mixing Greek, Roman, Christian, and African mythologies, the work is entirely unique.The Dreambegins with the arrival of the Dutch in southern Africa and tells the story of the birth of the Afrikaner people: their trials with the British and Dingane, and
their reestablishment of the Transvaal Republic. The goddess Fortuna then arrives to warn Kruger of his and his people's fate.