Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Damian Barr, author of You Will Be Safe Here, his first novel, published in May by Bloomsbury.

Damian is an award winning writer and columnist. Maggie And Me, his memoir won several prestigious awards. Damian writes columns for BigIssue and High Life. He is the creator and host of his own Literary Salon that premieres work from established and emerging writers. I’d love to talk to him for hours about that but we’re here to sell his book, to be unpolished.

You know, Sometimes I get a little nervous when a novel straddles two centuries with multiple characters. But no need to fear here. The pieces of this book fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. It may not be the most pleasant of juxtapositions but it is a novel that immediately draws the reader in, not with certainty, but with a subtle questioning that leaves one a bit nervous and unsure, kind of, of one’s own values.

We explore and are pulled by the protagonist, Sarah van der Watt and her son Fred through their agonizing journey in 1901 during the second Boer War, where the English established what were the first true concentration camps. Sarah’s diary describes in excruciating detail the nature of these camps.

Fast forward to the 2000s and we find ourselves in another “safe” place where young and “different” Willem is forced into another camp, that differs in time and nature but imposes the same torture and inhumanity that we have already explored.

Lastly, the reader must come to acknowledge that the stories, both of them, are inspired not only by real events, but beckon us to realize that these events are still happening throughout the world and some are even posted by our own nation. With that, perhaps too morbid introduction, welcome Damian and thanks so much for joining us today.