From Bryce Courtenay comes a new novel about Africa. The time is 1939. White South Africa is a deeply divided nation with many of the Afrikaner people frantically opposed to the English.
The world is also on the brink of war and South Africa elects to fight for the Allied cause against Germany. Six year-old Tom Fitzsaxby finds himself in The Boys Farm, an orphanage in a remote town in the high mountains, where the Afrikaners side fiercely with Hitler's Germany.
Tom's English name proves sufficient for him to be ostracised, marking him as an outsider. And so begin some of life's tougher lessons for the small lonely boy. Like the whitethorn, one of Africa's most enduring plants, Tom learns how to survive in the harsh climate of racial hatred. Then a terrible event sends him on a journey to ensure that justice is done. On the way, his most unexpected discovery is love.
- ISBN10 0718150422
- ISBN13 9780718150426
- Publish Date 2 November 2006 (first published 1 December 2005)
- Publish Status Unknown
- Out of Print 21 December 2006
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
- Imprint Michael Joseph Ltd
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 704
- Language English