Shape of the Country: A Novel of Paul Kruger

He was ten years old when his family's wagons crossed the Orange River into the wilderness, and eleven when he stood in the gun-smoke at Vegkop. At twenty he cut off his own thumb at a kitchen table. At seventy-five he left his country for the last time on a Dutch warship, and at seventy-eight he died in exile above a Swiss lake — still dictating, still praying, still President in the eyes of the ...