The Kite Flyer
Gerrit de Waal is born in 1686 during the Dutch Golden Age of oceanic exploration and trade. His life is thrown into confusion when his seafaring father’s ship, the Ridderschap van Holland, mysteriously disappears in the Indian Ocean in 1694. He is eight years old and growing up in cosmopolitan Middelburg, Zeeland. He develops a steely sense of purpose and resilient independence of spirit as he survives into adulthood.
At twenty-six, Gerrit signs on aboard the VOC cargo vessel Zuytdorp, as the senior carpenter, determined to find out what happened to his father. He wants to trace his footsteps and see if he can be found. Suspecting his ship may have been wrecked off the coast of Eendrachtsland – known to us as Western Australia – Gerrit sets sail, resolved to see if the crew survived.
Shipwrecked himself during a cyclone in June, 1712, he is saved from drowning by his close friend, Sunil Dewaraja, a Ceylonese pearl diver and seaman in the crew. Cast ashore on the Australian continent, they avoid certain death after a chance meeting with a local Aboriginal Malgana family. Assimilation does not come easily, in the place where the sun meets the sea.
Brilliant glass technician Stefan Novak uses the notes, charts and sketches of his friend, celebrated Aboriginal Australian sculptor Lennard Currie, to write a novel based on Gerrit’s life. Lennard has researched the de Waal family and believes his family tree intertwines with theirs.
The Kite Flyer is a vividly imagined novel that takes a remarkable moment in Dutch and Australian history and brings it graphically to life.
The Kite Flyer is Book II in The Truth & Reconciliation Trilogy.