<p>"You are too close to the water," Paul whispered. "There are barbels in the mud. They will wake up if you step on them."<br><br>When Paul and Dominique are sent to boarding schools in Natal, their idyllic childhood on a Free State farm is over. Their parents' leftist politics has made life impossible in the local dorp school. Angry schoolboy Paul is a promising poet, his sister his confidant. But his literary awakening turns into a descent. He flees the oppression of South Africa, only to meet his death in London.<br><br>Dominique Botha's poignant debut is an elegy to a rural existence and her brother – both now forever lost. The novel is based on true events.</p>