Author Description

Stranded in a South African fishing village during the Second World War, a mother and her young son are obliged to deal with a sweep of dramatic events which threatens to overwhelm them. Silver Town, a seemingly placid backwater, is the setting of this story of gradual breakdown and inevitable collapse. The adult Jimmy-a middle-aged British businessman-returns home many years after the war and is forced to relive the time of his childhood, a youth caught in conflicting loyalties which threaten to tear him apart. War Child is an extraordinarily sensitive novel, the story of James Esslin-Jimmy-boy, son of Sarah and Andy, protégé of Euphemia, his African nanny-who is part of everything but apart from everyone. At once the story of every adult's lost childhood and a superb portrait of character in formation-and disintegration-War Child is told in a way that makes a lost colonial world vividly real.