by Damon Galgut
First published 2006
Patrick Winter stands in Namibia as the country holds its first democratic elections. Twelve months earlier, he served here as a soldier, defending a system now crumbling around him. The landscape triggers memories he has spent a year burying. This is where he experienced love for the first and last time. This is where he learned about loss. The elections transform everything. Black faces appear on ballot papers. The old order collapses. Patrick watches a nation remake itself while his own carefully constructed defenses begin to crack. He built walls around his memories of military service, around the person he loved, around the pain of losing both. Now those barriers start to fall. The country's liberation forces Patrick to confront his own imprisonment. He must face what happened during his service. He must remember the love that changed him. He must reckon with the losses that followed. As Namibia claims its freedom, Patrick discovers whether he can claim his own.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, african-literature, contemporary
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Namibia
Period: 20th-century
143 pages · Paperback · Atlantic Books
Content warnings: death, war