The Girl who Killed a Nation is a fast-paced tale that is deeply reflective, readable and down to earth, and will draw in lovers of travel, history, and personal memoir.  It is a true African story that will change readers’ perceptions.

How did a teenage girl cause the death of 40,000 of her own people in 1856 – and why do some compare her to an African Joan of Arc or Greta Thunberg? Was she a black liberation leader, a malicious liar or the disruptor of a conservative patriarchal society?

Join Treive Nicholas on a moving physical and spiritual journey from the Wild Coast of South Africa to a highly symbolic grave in Cambridgeshire, England as he searches for the infamous teenage prophetess Nongqawuse – leader of the popular mass movement known as the Great Cattle Killing (1856–57). 

Fate is his constant companion, gently leading him to the rivers, woods and pastures where mercurial spirits, kings, prophets, witch doctors and colonial leaders played out this visceral African story in the cauldron of nine wars, settler invasion and cruel natural disasters. The ripples of this almost unbelievable tragedy are still felt today.

On the grassy hills of the Eastern Cape, Treive concludes the South African leg of his pilgrimage, holding an open-air court at the grave of the revered amaXhosa ruler, King Hintsa. The verdict on his death? Bloody regicide, at the hands of Sir Harry Smith, the Hero of Aliwal and darling of Victorian society.

After recovering from four tropical diseases, and much to Treive’s great surprise, the journey does not end there. Instead, it all comes uncomfortably closer to home. Much closer.