LANGBOURNE

231pp., map, paperback, No Place, 2025

ISBN: 9781764163408

Text in Afrikaans. First published in English in 2014.

This historical novel is based on a true story.

In 1891 Jewish brothers Morris and David, aged 15 and 16, decide to escape the poverty, cold and hunger of Ireland to find a new life in South Africa. They start a tobacco business and learn to adapt to the way of life, the cultures and wildlife of a new and strange world.

Alan Landau was born in Salisbury, Rhodesia, in 1959. In 1978 he joined the British South Africa Police and served in the new Zimbabwe Republic Police, before retiring and working in Zimbabwe's tobacco industry. Later on, he was involved in the travel, tourism, hotel, property, financial, and retail sectors. He emigrated to Brisbane, Australia, in 2001 and bought a franchise in the retail sector, which he ran until going into semi-retirement in 2012.