If you’ve read Station Eleven or the Plague you’ll know big public gatherings are not a great idea right now. So, to look after you all and those you love, I’ve taken the difficult decision to cancel all events for the paperback launch of You Will Be Safe Here.
I am sorry this means we can't share the book in person and that I won't get to meet you and hear your stories. As soon as it's safe to do so, I will be planning more events.
For now, you can still pre-order the paperback and have it delivered to you wherever you are. It would *really* be a big help to me if you felt able to do that and I thank you for it:
https://youwillbesafehere.shortstack.com/kw8p0
Please consider supporting your local indie bookshop as they are all really struggling right now.
I'll be popping up to do readings via Facebook Live, twitter and insta so please follow whatever social works for you:
Insta: @mrdamianbarr
Twitter: @Damian_Barr
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MrDamianBarr/
Thank you for all your support. Take good care,
Damian x.
You Will Be Safe Here:
A beautiful and heart-breaking story set in South Africa where two mothers - a century apart - must fight for their sons, unaware their fates are inextricably linked.
Orange Free State, 1901. At the height of the Boer War, Sarah van der Watt and her six-year-old son Fred can only watch as the British burn their farm. The polite invaders cart them off to Bloemfontein Concentration Camp promising you will be safe here.
Johannesburg, 2010. Sixteen-year-old Willem is an outsider who just wants to be left alone with his Harry Potter books and Britney, his beloved pug. Worried he’s turning out soft, his Ma and her new boyfriend send him to New Dawn Safari Camp, where they ‘make men out of boys.’ Guaranteed.
The red earth of the veldt keeps countless secrets whether beaten by the blistering sun or stretching out beneath starlit stillness. But no secret can stay buried forever.
Published in paperback by Bloomsbury Publishing UK on April 4th
Damian Barr is an award-winning writer and columnist. Maggie & Me, his memoir about coming of age and coming out in Thatcher's Britain, was a BBC Radio 4 ‘Book of the Week’, Sunday Times ‘Memoir of the Year’ and won the Paddy Power Political Books 'Satire' Award and Stonewall Writer of the Year Award. Damian writes columns for the Big Issue and High Life and often appears on BBC Radio 4. He is creator and host of his own Literary Salon that premieres work from established and emerging writers. You Will Be Safe Here is his debut novel. Damian Barr lives in Brighton. Damian Barr
Powerful - MAGGIE O'FARRELL
Beautiful - MAX PORTER
Stunning - JOHN BOYNE
There is pain on these pages and poetry too. I left this book bruised yet somehow better for it - TAYARI JONES, THE OBSERVER BOOKS OF THE YEAR
Barr has achieved something remarkable – a powerfully moving tale - THE OBSERVER
Barr’s first novel is distinguished by its compassion, its wisdom and its remarkable sense of poetry - THE GUARDIAN
Both a damning indictment of one of the most ignoble periods in British history and a haunting portrait of modern South Africa - METRO
Eye-opening and meticulously researched - SPECTATOR