LEWISTON – It took a man from 8,000 miles away – an opponent of racism in South Africa – to unearth both a dirty secret in America’s south and a jewel.

“People have ignored this with no bad intention,” acclaimed novelist Zakes Mda said Thursday. “I am able to see with a new eye.”

The secret is something he refers to in his latest novel, “Cion.”

It’s his first book set in America, telling the story of a small town in southeastern Ohio and its unique racial heritage: a blend of whites, Native Americans and African-Americans.

That’s the jewel, set in 2004. The dirty secret is chronicled in the flashbacks, in southern plantations he describes as “breeding farms.”

“It wasn’t something official,” said Mda, who discovered references to the practice in Virginia archives. Slave owners would simply raise too many slaves for their farms. And they did it on purpose.

The vile practice has surprised many people as he has toured the U.S. since the book’s American publication in August. He spoke Thursday at the Lewiston Public Library as part of the Great Falls Forum lecture series.

“People say, ‘We did not know there were breeding farms,’ ” he said. The archives, particularly consisting of old newspapers, have been there all the time.

Mda was born in the Hesrchel District of the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. He spent his early childhood in Soweto and finished his secondary education in Lesotho, where his father lived.

Mda, 59, has lived off and on in America since 1981. He attended Ohio University, where he teaches creative writing, fiction and playwriting.

“Cion” is his sixth novel. Previous novels include “The Whale Caller,” “The Heart of Redness” and “Ways of Dying.” “Cion” is a kind of sequel to “Ways of Dying,” narrated by the same professional mourner, Toloki.

In the real town of Kilvert, Ohio, the fictitious Toloki manages to get inside the multi-racial families that live there. The town was once a haven for runaway slaves and Native Americans.

To this day, locals there carry on 19th-century traditions, including quilt-making.

Even Ohio people say, “We didn’t think there were communities like this,” Mda said.

The author latched onto the quilt-making in his book, which encompasses “the whole narrative of life and death.”

“They are like codes,” he said, describing the handed-down motifs. “Every stitch has meaning. I use these quilts as a portal to the past.”

Mda, who writes for a South African audience, said he has been surprised by the attention he has received in the U.S., and the surprise that people continue to show who have read his latest novel.

The lesson is simple: People become myopic.

The community of Kilvert sits only 14 miles from the city of Athens, but it took someone from away to spot its uniqueness, he said.

“It’s because they lived with these people all their lives,” he said.