Through the Dust (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781491027882)

Cheriê Pascoe was born in the Zimbabwean town of Bulawayo in 1975. At the age of four, and at the height of the Rhodesian War, her family left for South Africa. She grew up in KwaZulu Natal starting near Eshowe on the north coast before moving inland where she attended Cato Ridge Primary School, then on to Pietermaritzburg Girls High. She left the inland city for Durban where she obtained a degree in Environmental Health. However, work opportunities took her in a slightly different direction, and she was employed by the Keep Pietermaritzburg Clean Association for eight years. Her role was to educate the public in waste management and recycling, and with the purpose of reaching the public on a wide scale, was challenged to make a "not-terribly exciting subject for most people" interesting and informative through regular features in the regional newspapers, "The Witness" and "Echo". The subject turned out to be often controversial, and to her great surprise, a small following of regular readers developed. "I discovered that I absolutely loved writing. I had never considered a writing life before and so I thought that if I could get readers interested in waste issues, then perhaps I could try my hand at writing something infinitely more entertaining." Cheriê now lives with her husband Andrew and three children in New Zealand. "We moved here partly for the adventure and partly for the opportunities that our children now have. But South Africa is still irrevocably part of our souls, and perhaps one day we will return for more than just a visit." "Through the Dust" is her debut novel, set in Southern Africa and inspired by her and her husband's ancestral history. Cheriê is currently working on her second novel on an entirely different subject, the ancient ruins of Great Zimbabwe. "Though there is no archeological evidence on site to support the theory, there is a tantalising record written by an Arab trader in around 100AD, of the existence of ruins inland from modern-day Mozambique." Cheriê hopes to complete the novel by the end of 2013.