I was back in a hospital bed, with a doctor sitting beside me. 'Try to describe how you feel,' he said. 'I feel dislocated,' I told him. 'Not part of life.' 'Whose life?' 'Mine. Everybody's. Life.' And the familiar sensation started up in my belly, the shaking spread into my arms. I covered my face with my hands, but I couldn't block out what I saw.' A year ago Patrick Winter, a young South African, was sent to Namibia to complete his military service and to defend his country against 'terrorism'. Now he is back, to meet Godfrey, his mother's freedom fighter boyfriend, and to witness the country's first free elections. But Patrick needs to confront and process much more than a country in transition, and in doing so he is forced to revisit his past and to face the pain and the...
DAMON GALGUT is the author of nine novels. He won the Booker Prize 2021 for The Promise, having been shortlisted for the prize twice before (The Good Doctor and In A Strange Room). He lives and works in Cape Town.
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