Cowra Library is hosting Australian author Judy Campbell talking about her South African memoir The Silver Tea Service.
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Cowra residents can meet Judy on Friday, March 31 at 10.30am.
Please book your place online via Eventbrite.com or call the library on 6340 2180.
Eight years after the death of her mother, Judy reviews her family relics, including the antique tea service that belonged to her mother's grandfather.
Should she just sell the damn thing and buy new lounge furniture? It's tempting.
But she stops to read the inscription etched into the solid silver tray.
It honours this man around whom hangs a century-old mystery. Prickling with a strange resentment towards her widely loved mother, she embarks on a journey to uncover the truth behind the story of grandeur and ruin her mother had promised, but never wrote.
The author's relentless research in dusty archives and neglected cemeteries across South Africa unravels an unexpected family history. The process draws her to revisit the darker corridors of her youth, and her sense of identity. She confronts the losses and complexities of her own life.
The Silver Tea Service is a thought-provoking memoir of loss, redemption and belonging, of political injustices and the inescapable nuances of history in South Africa.
Judy Campbell is an author, composer and lyricist. Her work has featured on recordings, in a new musical, and she has written many music related articles.
She is currently working on her next book based on the story of a Bengali slave in the early days of the Cape Colony and how it unexpectedly found expression in the politics of the 20th century in South Africa.
