The book was originally written in Afrikaans under the name Fiela se Kind, and was later translated into English, German, French, Hebrew, Dutch, Slovene and Swedish.

[1] The story is set in the forests of Knysna, South Africa in the nineteenth century, and tells the story of a Cape Coloured woman, Fiela Komoetie, and her family who adopt an abandoned Afrikaner three year old child Benjamin Komoetie found outside their door.

Fiela is distraught that her child is being taken away and travels to speak with the magistrate which fails because of the prevalent racism at the time.

The climax of the story unfolds a few years later when the boy forces his "mother's" guilt to confess that he is not actually her son and he returns to Fiela and her family, whom he chooses as his own.

Although this plays off before Apartheid at a time when technically there was equality before the law, the legal system was biased and in favour of whites.