th
Human & Rousseau
ISBN: 9780798152235
Published: 2010
“I killed your sister after all, which is hardly endearing…”
So begins James McIntyre’s devastating account of his role in the death of Melissa Campbell, a young doctor living on her Eastern Cape family farm and working in the rural clinic where James is conducting research.
Three years after Melissa’s death, her sister Samantha can barely function. She survives by suppressing painful memories and focusing on raising Melissa’s little boy. But an initiative to incorporate the family farm into a biosphere reserve forces her to embark on a journey that will confront the past and uncover distressing truths surrounding her sister’s life and death.
The story tells of betrayal, deception, genetic engineering, sisterhood…and a lonely and reluctant quest for salvation.
Shortlisted for the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa 2012
Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize 2011
Praise for The Unseen Leopard
There are many unseen leopards in this book, the dangerous things that lurk just out of our sight, but closer than we think. It is a complex novel, but Pitt deftly weaves her strands together, and the climax is both gripping and moving. – Margaret von Klemperer Natal Witness
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I found The Unseen Leopard absolutely compelling and multilayered… It is my South African novel of the year so far, and I predict it will be a major contender for our premier literary awards. – Tony Weaver, Cape Times
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The novel is a fascinating read, gripping and the themes are universal. They are so maturely handled that one gets drawn in. The language is graceful, apt and the dialogue is brilliant. It’s a wonderfully elegant piece that works its spell on the reader. It’s really witty with a savage humour that makes the book timeless and terrific. - comments by judges of the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa
It is difficult to find a novel with such a rhetorical strategy that weaves nature—animals, plants, fauna, hideous caves and vast waters to portray a subject of the quest for the cause, motive, and the culprit of the death of a triangularly loved deceased. It engages the subject of capitalism and national patriotism. The language exudes lyrical beauty with a rare economy of words.- comments by judges of the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa
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