Sheldon Jackson College, Sitka, AK, 7 September, 1985

“I read with considerable care the substantial segments you sent and can, with honesty and propriety say the following:

‘Since Brazil is larger in size than the United States it merits a full length novel which summarizes and dramatizes its remarkable history. Errol Lincoln Uys, a distinguished writer born in South Africa but resident in America for many years, has written such a book.

‘The flow of his narrative is compelling. His characters are hewn from the history of Brazil. And the timeliness of his philosophical comment is striking.

'He has written a book that will captivate and instruct and I hope it will find many readers.’"

“Uys showed such a mastery and predilection for plotting that again and again he came up with dazzling ideas that again and again attracted my attention. I am no good at plotting, hold it to be almost an excrescence, and pay far too little attention to it, so that Uys's bold suggestions were often appreciated.

“He really was a remarkable man in his ability to visualize instantly and I rarely had to waste a moment explaining anything. Also, he had the capacity and willingness to catch an idea and run with it in his own direction, often proposing something so far from my intention that I was bedazzled. I judge he could plot six novels a year with intricate beauties; he should have been in G-2 in some complicated war situation.

"Never once did I say, 'So now we have this Englishman at the Mission Station in 1819. How does he get to the Orange River?' without his having nine or eleven possibilities, all good, all logical, all beautifully coordinated. Often I would say, 'too complicated for our boy,' or 'I doubt that our boy would go that far,' but just as often I would say, 'That might be just what he would do..'

"Once we broke away from his conception of a super-dramatic novel, at which he would have been excellent, he grasped immeidately and totally my concept of a novel which would unfold all the qualities of the Afrikaner heritage, and althrough he sometimes tooka dim view of that heritage,he was brilliant in bringing to my attenbtion aspects which I could not have though of by myself, even though I had done and was doing considerable work in the field."

"Every excerpt, every page you have written for my book shows that you are a writer with a superb use of the English language, a remarkable vocabulary and a very special turn of phrase…You unquestionably have the talent to write almost anything you direct your attention to. You are a great researcher, as your copious notes prior to our work sessions together indicated.

“And you know how to put words together most skillfully as your work on the manuscript proved. With such talents you stand a remarkably good chance in whatever you try. You have also, from what I gleaned in our conversations on the long walks, an acute sense of timeliness in subject matter. That's a rare combination; the most promising I've met with in years of talking with would-be writers."