Review | ‘Cape Fever’ by Nadia Davids examines the quotidian nature of colonial exploitation

Cape Fever , the second novel by celebrated South African author and playwright Nadia Davids, is set in an unnamed city known simply as the Cape in the aftermath of World War I. It could be classified as historical fiction, but it might be more appropriate to read it as a work of postcolonial gothic. The plot revolves around Soraya, a young Muslim woman, who secures a job as a maid in a large colonial mansion, home of the lonely Mrs. Hattingh, a British widow, who lives in financial precarity under the veneer of fading grandeur. However, they are not the only characters in the house. Soraya is able to feel the spirits inhabiting the house: Rosa, the girl in the painting who curiously resembles her, and Fatima, the previous housekeeper. These spirits are not malevolent, even though they add to the sense of impending doom in the novel.