Heaven Forbid

In the sunny, jacaranda leafed garden of his Johannesburg home, six year old Martin Donally is king of a small and perfect world. It is 1948 and life is full of buoyant childish rhymes and his colourful, Irish extended family. There`s exuberant Grandpa who sings and races horses; chain smoking Auntie Fee, who always sides with the ogres in fairy tales and who makes up her own stories about Martin`s dead father; and above all Georgie, the family`s Zulu servant and Martin`s confidant. But this cosy world of fixed certainties is about to end as Martin`s tale turns to one of political and personal tragedy. He can`t possibly foresee the resounding defeat of the liberal government that will usher in a new era of bigotry and intolerance, nor appreciate the significance of the fact Dr Voerwoerd, architect of apartheid, is a neighbour. And what is he to make of dour, racist, Presbyterian Gordon his mother`s husband-to-be, a man who seems determined to shatter the care-free world of the Donally`s for good? Heaven Forbid is a wise, moving tale of innocence blighted and paradise lost; an unforgettable novel of childhood, family and the impact on a private world of a crucial moment in history.