Two characters navigate the post-apartheid South African landscape in this haunting story of the injustice that still simmers below the country's surface In Troy Blacklaws's ambitious novel, the lives of two African men run parallel, exposing the tensions that rumble at South Africa's post-apartheid core. Jerusalem is a young poet and student whose stubborn father will no longer pay for his rambling studies. Half Jewish, half Muslim, Jerusalem is forced from Cape Town to a distant harbor village by his father, who believes a stint selling curios to tourists will right his wandering ways. Meanwhile, Jabulani loses his teaching job in Zimbabwe after mocking President Mugabe and must move south to start a new life. But his life across the border is tainted by the harsh truth that racism isn't gone; it's just taken another form. As the two men's lives merge, their stories reveal the paradoxes of the South African experience.

Troy Blacklaws's follow-up to his internationally acclaimed Karoo Boy is the bittersweet tale of a South African boy coming of age during apartheid Gecko's childhood is one of sheltered, almost magical innocence on a farm in Natal. He spends his days taking barefoot expeditions with his dogs and his nights listening to Springbok Radio, unaware of the cruel force in his life that apartheid will soon become. With the start of high school in the Cape, Gecko is thrust into a political and personal awakening that is both tragic and heartfelt. With conscription into the South African army looming over him, Gecko's future is as uncertain as his country's. Blood Orange evokes the absurdity, longing, and fear of growing up white in the last decades of apartheid. "Tantalizingly beautiful." -Desmond Tutu "Blood Orange is an important, vital voice to add to the tapestry of literature coming out of Southern Africa. Such vibrancy is rare in any literature. Coming out of such a legacy of violence and pain, it is nothing less than a miracle." -Alexandra Fuller, author of Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight "Troy Blacklaws beautifully lays bare how it took raw guts for a young white boy to resist apartheid." -Antjie Krog, author of Country of My Skull Troy Blacklaws is a South African writer whose work uses the lens of his own boyhood to illuminate the reality of living under apartheid. After moving from Natal, South Africa, to the Cape with his family at the age of nine, Blacklaws learned the truth behind the divisions in his country, first as a student at Paarl Boys' High and then as a draftee for the army, where he spent two bitter years as an objector. Shortlisted for the Prix Femina for Karoo Boy, Blacklaws is a graduate of Rhodes University and has taught at international schools in Frankfurt, Vienna, and Singapore. He now lives and teaches in Luxembourg.

Troy Blacklaws's acclaimed debut novel is the remarkable story of a boy coming of age in the wake of tragedy When his twin brother dies in a freak accident, Douglas's life begins to unravel. His mother leaves his father, taking Douglas with her to live in the Karoo region, a harsh desert landscape that is a far cry from Cape Town and the seaside life Douglas has always known. In this small village that is wary of outsiders, he makes two friends who change his life forever: a beautiful girl named Marika and an old man named Moses. Immersed in rich language and vivid detail, and set against the backdrop of 1970s South Africa, Karoo Boy is the story of a young man finding his way in the midst of chaos and loss. "Karoo Boy is told in the voice of a spectacularly young male protagonist, who in his own way is as captivating and memorable as Holden Caulfield." -John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil "A beautifully evocative coming-of-age story." -Bryce Courtenay, author of The Power of One "The most colorful book I have ever read." -Chris Martin, Coldplay "A sunburst of a novel, Blacklaws' coming-of-age story, set in 1970s South Africa, sparkles with a small boy's wonderment." -Vanity Fair Troy Blacklaws is a South African writer whose work uses the lens of his own boyhood to illuminate the reality of living under apartheid. After moving from Natal, South Africa, to the Cape with his family at the age of nine, Blacklaws learned the truth behind the divisions in his country, first as a student at Paarl Boys' High and then as a draftee for the army, where he spent two bitter years as an objector. Shortlisted for the Prix Femina for Karoo Boy, Blacklaws is a graduate of Rhodes University and has taught at international schools in Frankfurt, Vienna, and Singapore. He now lives and teaches in Luxembourg.

Blood orange is the bitter-sweet memoir of a South African boyhood. We follow Gecko from his magical barefoot childhood in rural Natal, to his tragi-comic sexual and political awakening in high school in the Cape, and on towards that ever-darkening cloud on his horizon: conscription into the South African army.

The story is a crystal-vivid South African Catcher in the Rye, the account of a young boy's coming of age set in the 1970s. The most impressive thing, the heart of the text, is the skilled writing. Blacklaws doesn't tell a story; instead he gives the near-still frames that make it run like film.