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First published in 1952, Mittee was an international bestseller. Set in late nineteenth-century Transvaal, it dramatizes the intense, ambiguous love-hate relationship between Selina, a young colored servant girl, and her privileged white mistress, Mittee, and explores the roles forced upon the two women, fierce rivals for the attentions of the same man. Juxtaposing violence and sexuality the author crosses gender and racial boundaries in this powerful exposure of a patriarchal, puritanical and divided society.