Circles in a forest (Kringe in 'n bos) - Dalene Matthee

Circles in a Forest is a novel by Dalene Matthee, originally written and published in Afrikaans as Kringe in 'n Bos in 1984. It is the first book in her series of four "forest novels", set in the Knysna forest. The other three "forest novels" are Fiela se Kind (Fielas Child) published in 1985, Moerbeibos (The Mulberry Forest) published in 1987 and Toorbos (Dreamforest, later translated as Karoelina’s Forest) published in 2003.

Circles in a Forest became a best-seller and has been translated into English, Portuguese, Dutch, French, Icelandic, Spanish, Hebrew, German, Swedish, Italian, Finnish and Norwegian. The novel is a coming-of-age story about an Afrikaans woodcutter named Saul Barnard, set in and around the South African town of Knysna in the nineteenth century, focusing on the impact of a gold rush on the Outeniqua forest, its Afrikaans and Khoekhoe residents and the Knysna elephants.

Born and bred into the tawny magnificence of Africa, Saul would fight to save the vanishing world of his inheritance. Home of the wild elephants and the fiercely independent families of woodcutters, the Knysna Forest is under threat from the exploitative greed of the timber merchants, and the ruthless plundering of the ivory hunters. Saul Barnard is a man with a self imposed mission u to halt the wanton destruction. For years he has protected the forest from intruders, finding a strange mystical kinship with the spirit of Old Foot, the indomitable and majestic elephant. Then when the word goes round that Old Foot is on the rampage, Saul is propelled towards a terrible confrontation that will change his future, for ever.