Stephen Hayes, "The Year of the Dragon", a novel from South Africa

By Stephen Hayes

In the 1950s, when Lovecraft Country is set, black American fans of such literature were on the outside looking in, but what about Africa? African culture is different from American culture, and most of the literature of that kind that we have to read is from overseas somewhere. I was once reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to some black South African children, and there were many foreign cultural references that needed to be explained. The only African literature that seems to me to be comparable is Amos Tutuola's My life in the bush of ghosts, but I think that is more for adults than for children. (from here)

I tried to write a children’s book with a South African setting, Of Wheels and Witches, and David was about to say something about the use of these tropes in that, but we moved quickly on to discussing other books. But, perhaps rather weirdly, in the light of Boneland, my recently-published The Year of the Dragon features some of the same characters as adults. (from here)

The Year of the Dragon
Smashwords

The year is 1988.
For 40 years the world has been in the grip of the Cold War, and South Africa has been in the grip of apartheid. For 71 years Russia has been under Bolshevik tyranny. Though few suspect it, this is about to change for ever.
On a farm in the picturesque southern Drakensberg of South Africa a woman dies, and a young lawyer, Richard Rutherford, and his friend Denis Walters combine business with a pleasure weekend in the mountains. They will visit the farm to take the first steps in settling the estate. They soon discover that others also have an interest in the estate, or at least some items in it, and that they are prepared to kill for them.
The contentious items seem to be some old Russian ikons, but how they got to a remote farm and why others are so anxious to get hold of them is a mystery. The search for answers leads them to a strange hermit and an even stranger priest, and a drive of a thousand miles in search of King Lobengula’s legendary treasure. 

See also

"A generous orthodoxy" – And the journey of a South African spiritual seeker to the Orthodox Church 
"Tales from Dystopia", memories of the apartheid era in South Africa from an Orthodox Christian writer...
Stephen Hayes, A children’s novel about apartheid (photo)

Orthodox Christians in South Africa - Mamelodi Congregation
Mamelodi (South Africa) : Christina Mothapo’s funeral
The Orthodox Church in the Republic of South Africa
St Nicholas of Japan, a multi-ethnic orthodox parish in Johannesburg
Afrikaans Ortodoks