Written by Sowmya Gopi
Ever read a book that grips you for story so much that even after you turn the last page, the story keeps evolving further in your head? Well, that’s what this book does, it leaves your mind reeling. The title of the book is “You Will Be Safe Here”, words set in between bared wires on the cover and it’s a simple message that will lead you to an intense, horrendous, and captivating tale and will make you wonder is anyone really safe?
In the beginning of the story, it’s 2014 and we meet Willem, who is about to enter a correctional camp for teenagers run by an AWB supporter in South Africa. Then we move to the time of the second Boer War in 1901 where we meet Sarah and her young son, Fred, who are forced from their home and told they’ll be safe at the Bloemfontein Concentration Camp. How their stories are interlinked with each other is what forms the twists in the story.
This book is inspired by real events and it is somehow both chilling and touching. The characters within the modern-day story are particularly unlikable due to the casual racism they indulge in.
Within the novel, we follow the lives of these characters in different times. In 1901, a farmer’s wife Sarah writes a diary for her soldier husband, off to fight the British in the Boer War. Sarah and her son, Fred, see their farm razed to the ground by the British before being evicted and transported to the ‘safe place’ of the title. In reality, this is an internment camp as brutal as the later Nazi concentration camps. Although the Boers felt oppressed by the British, they themselves had, of course, subjugated the Kaffirs for generations.
Our more modern storyline begins in Johannesburg in 1976, during the time of apartheid. Rayna, struggles to bring up her daughter Irma and son Piet, while her husband works up north in the mines. This leads on to her daughter’s story and that of her son, Willem, in the 1990s through to the 21st century.
The final chapters show the links between the two parts and it pulls all the threads together in a satisfying, but disturbing way. There is so much history in this book, in a place that is little known about. This gripping tale will shock you, surprise you, and disturb you, but it most definitely won’t disappoint you.
You Will Be Safe Here is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers.
Have you read You Will Be Safe Here? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
An extraordinary debut that explores legacies of abuse, redemption, and the strength of the human spirit–from the Boer Wars in South Africa to brutal wilderness camps for teenage boys.
South Africa, 1901. It is the height of the second Boer War. Sarah van der Watt and her six-year-old son Fred are forced from their home on Mulberry Farm. As the polite invaders welcome them to Bloemfontein Concentration Camp they promise Sarah and Fred that they will be safe there.
2014. Sixteen-year-old Willem is an outsider. Hoping he will become the man she wants him to be, his Ma and her boyfriend force Willem to attend the New Dawn Safari Training Camp where they are proud to make men out of boys. They promise that he will be safe there.
You Will Be Safe Here is a powerful and urgent novel of two connected South African stories. Inspired by real events, it uncovers a hidden colonial history, reveals a dark contemporary secret, and explores the legacy of violence and our will to survive.
