Refuge

Andrew Brown is an author, an advocate and a reservist sergeant in the South African Police Service. While a student in the 1980s he was arrested after confrontation with police and was sentenced to imprisonment. On appeal, the Cape High Court overturned the sentence and imposed community service instead. Brown now practises as an advocate in the same High Court that heard his appeal. Since 1999 he has also worked as a police reservist, his duties taking him from the tree-lined avenues of Rosebank to the squalor of Masiphumelele. His previous books are the novels Inyenzi, Coldsleep Lullaby, Refuge, Solace and Devil’s Harvest, as well as Street Blues, about his earlier experiences as a police reservist. He has won the Sunday Times Fiction Prize and his work has been shortlisted for the Alan Paton Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Africa Region). He is married, with three children.