YOU WILL BE SAFE HERE by Damian Barr

The author is a British columnist, playwright and writer. He has a NZ connection, last year receiving a University of Otago Scottish Writer's fellowship based at the Pah Homestead in Auckland.  I wonder if this is where he put the finishing touches to this outstanding novel. He says on his website he is a story teller, and oh my goodness, he certainly knows how to tell a story, weaving fact into fiction, creating characters and a story that will stay with you long after reading.

The setting for this novel is another sad chapter in British colonial history - the Boer War of 1899-1902. I wonder how many times people are ashamed of the history they have come from, because this is certainly a shameful time, with the forced incarceration of thousands of Boer women and children into what were the first concentration camps, and which were the blueprints for the Nazis in the 1930s. The novel opens with Sarah van der Watt and her 6 year old son Fred being taken from their farm which is burnt to the ground in front of their eyes, to a camp where they are told they will be safe, well looked after and cared for during the course of the war. Like that is going to happen. The reality of course is quite different, awful really. Sarah manages to keep a diary, forbidden by the camp officials, over the months she is there. In reality, there was a woman who did manage to keep a diary during her internment and this part of the novel is based on those writings.

Part II of the novel has moved to the present day - 2010. A teenage boy, Willem, is being sent off to a training camp, to be made into a man. He is a quiet boy, loves his books and his dog. But his mother and her new man are finding him increasingly difficult to get on with, so see this as the only way to fix him. His grandmother is dismayed at what is going on, but has little say in the matter. The camp is an appalling place, run by a pair of sadists. It takes a while for the connections to be made between the present and the past, but it just goes to show one can never run away from the happenings of years previous. Again, much of this part of the novel is based on fact. These training camps did exist, the character of Willem and another boy are based as well as  the camp leaders on real people. You can google all this - names etc are given in the acknowledgements section at the back.

This is an outstanding book, powerful in its story telling, compelling and believable characters, dealing with shocking situations. The characters may all be based on real people, long since dead, but the author has made them so life like and real - such a skill. I loved this book, and despite its subject matter, it is definitely a favourite recent read.