The Children's Day Format: Paperback

The Children's Day is the shocking, funny, and tender chronicle of a boy's coming of age in the Free State village of Verkeerdespruit during the apartheid years of the sixties.

The tender chronicle of a boy's coming of age in South Africa during the apartheid years of the sixties, The Children's Day captures the essence of growing up in a world fraught with the strange and sometimes violent contradictions of class, race, gender, and language. The widening world of adolescence, in all its allure and confusion, is explored through the eyes of Simon, who struggles to make sense of the adults around him—torn between scorn for his surroundings and a desire to belong. This debut novel is peopled with poignant, vulnerable, and sometimes eccentric characters, and it is through their lives that Simon comes to understand the complexities of love.

Michiel Heyns is an award-winning literary translator and author of nine novels: The Children’s Day, The Reluctant Passenger, The Typewriter’s Tale, Bodies Politic, Invisible Furies, Lost Ground, A Sportful Malice, I am Pandarus, and A Poor Season for Whales. He was previously professor of English at the University of Stellenbosch.