The boy next door: a novel
Winner of the Orange Award for New Writers
Media`s praise for The Boy Next Door
"If you expect heavy doses of miserabilism from African literature ‘The Tortured Continent’ then this novel will defy your expectations. It is powerful, passionate and ultimately life-enhancing."
Bernardine Evaristo - Bernardine Evaristo's New Blog
"[The characters'] shared status as outsiders brings them together in this novel about love, family and what it means to be African." Amy Wirshup - New York Times
"'Two days after I turned 14 the son of our neighbour set his stepmother alight', begins one of the most engaging novels about inter-racial love to be published this century... Sabatini shows the gradual collapse of her 'country of eternal optimists' with a hundred swift, sure touches and a rich cast of characters, heightening tension and mystery... It is entertaining, ambitious and packed with news from elsewhere, leavened by the precious optimism of youth. Don't miss it."
Amanda Craig - The Independent
"This is a story that stays with you long after you're done reading. Because Lindiwe's voice is so distinctive when she expresses herself, you feel her heart." New African Woman - January 2010
"What a worthy winner of the 2010 Orange Award for New Writers. This is an exuberant, tender and often humorous love story... Irene Sabatini is a born writer, and she has told a completely engrossing story which combines brilliantly realised fictional characters as well as evoking the only too real sad degradation of a once-thriving country."
Carla Mckay - Daily Mail - 2 July 2010
"Sabatini's descriptions of Zimbabwe--its people, its languages, its politics, its beauty and its despair--are absolutely stunning and not to be missed." Debra Ginsberg - Shelf Awareness
"When everything is finally revealed, it’s impossible not to be impressed by Sabatini’s flawless first novel. May she write many more"
Readers' views of The Boy Next Door
