Alastair Bruce

I am an author of three novels: Wall of Days, Boy on the Wire and The Weight of Skin.

Wall of Days

Wall of Days was first published in South Africa in 2010 and the UK in 2011. It has been translated into German and published as Die Wand der Zeit in 2012, and into Spanish as Marcas en la pared in 2018.

Wall of Days was shortlisted for Amazon Rising Stars 2011 and finished as runner-up. It was also shortlisted for the Best first book in the Africa region for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.

Plot

In a world all but drowned, a man called Bran has been living on an island for ten years. He was sent there in exile by those whose leader he was, and he tallies on the wall of his cave the days as they pass. Until the day when something happens that kindles in Bran such memories and longing that he persuades himself to return, even if it means execution. His reception is so unexpected, so mystifying that he casts about unsure of what is real and what imaginary. Only the friendship of a child consoles him as he retraces the terrible deeds for which he is answerable, and as he tries to reach back, over his biggest betrayal, to the one he loved. Wall of Days is a moving parable about guilt, loss and remembering.

Reception

“Seldom in recent years have I been so deeply impressed by a first novel as by Alastair Bruce’s visionary and profound Wall of Days [...] The remarkable achievement of Wall of Days is that [its] gathering conundrum never becomes part of an abstract or philosophical debate, or a ‘mere’ postmodernist game, but is fully embedded in the facts of a riveting and overwhelming story, told by a consummate storyteller who appears well set to become a defining novelist of our time.” (Andre Brink)

'Wall of Days is a brilliant debut novel, in fact it is a brilliant novel altogether. The prose is understated and clear, and the narrative arc buries complex ideas of guilt and accountability within simple events' (Cape Times)"

‘Alastair Bruce's exceptional first novel has echoes of J. M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians ... a compelling dystopian fantasy and a baffling mystery story’ (Financial Times)

‘An elegantly-sustained parable of tyranny, loss and memory’ (Guardian)

‘An intelligent, perceptive and subtle exploration of important themes’ (Independent)

'Beautifully written' (Cynthia Jele)

Reviews and interviews

Keeper of the Snails.

Cape Times

The Mail and Guardian

BookSA

A report from the launch event of September 30 2010

Lady Fancifull

Age of Uncertainty

Reconciliation in Life and Literature - Andre Brink

Ground Zero: The South African Literary landscape after Apartheid

Learn more

Boy on the Wire

Boy on the Wire was published in July 2015 in South Africa and August 2015 in the UK.

Plot

In 1983 Paul Hyde, aged ten, dies falling from a ledge in the mountains of the Karoo. His older brother Peter, who falls at the same time, survives but loses all memory of the event. The youngest brother, John, is the only witness.

Many years later, John is living in London. He and his wife Rachel, who knows nothing of the tragedy of his past and nothing of his family, make plans to have children of their own.

Their life together is disrupted when Peter arrives in London and claims his memory is returning. Pulled back in spite of himself, John returns to South Africa and the home he grew up in.

His return makes him question his recollection of the tragedy. Can we ever be certain of events that happened that far in the past, certain we have not completely changed their meaning and our part in them?

Reception

This book has wiped the floor with me! Intense, powerful & deeply unsettling. (Jane Rusbridge)

Masterful (Joseph O'Connor)

As a diary of a breakdown and a lucid examination of the good and bad sides of family communication this is lyrical and chilling and very, very real. (welovethisbook.com)

Boy on the Wire … might be one of the most important literary works to come from the pen of a South African author … in a number of years. (Jennifer Crocker, Cape Times)

Amazon Book of the month (one of three novels) in August 2015

Intense, powerful, and deeply unsettling...I really enjoyed every page. (ireadnovels)

The prose is simple: at times visceral and at others impersonal. Like a maelstrom this novel drew me in, and gripped me in its chilling vortex. It is a devastating story about family, loss, despair and redemption that keeps you in its clutches. (Andrea van Wyk, Rant and Rave Reviews)

One of our greats in the making: Alastair Bruce’s Boy on the Wire (Karina M Szczurek, Karina Magdalena)

The novel’s hold over us is sustained beyond our reading of it as we are left in a state of deep thought, even left uncomfortable, unsettled, as we question our memory, our mind, and, ultimately, ourselves. (Claire Charalambous, Dundee University Review of the Arts)

Shortlisted for the 2016 Sunday Times Barry Ronge Fiction prize