The Wall
Winner of the 2017 German Crime Fiction Prize
The Pines, a gated community in the South African city of East London, protects homeowners from crime. But nobody’s going to protect the young man trapped behind its walls.
Moses wants one thing: to get home, where his girlfriend and a cold beer are waiting for him. But his car breaks down on an empty street, not a single human being in sight. Moses slips into The Pines, a gated community, in hopes to find help from a university classmate who lives there. Over there, in the “white” world, everything seems calm, orderly, safe. But once inside, he feels like more of an outsider than ever. And he makes a terrible mistake.
Mistaken identities, racial profiling, and class politics form the backdrop of this intense thriller. Winner of the 2017 German Crime Fiction Prize, The Wall (translated by Rachel Hildebrandt) tackles the issues of gun violence, racism, and exclusion in contemporary South Africa—problems that are equally relevant to the United States.
208 Pages
Release Date: 2019
Before writing novels, Max Annas worked as a journalist. A renowned film critic, his first novel, The Farm, is currently under film production in South Africa.
Rachel Hildebrandt is a German to English translator who specializes in contemporary fiction. Although my concentration is in literary texts, I also have experience with historical, primary source translations (journals, letters, etc.) and can read old German handwriting styles as well.
She edits everything from science fiction novels to translation samples to scholarly books. Rachel is especially interested in editorial projects that involve translated literary works and texts from around the world.
Reviews
“Annas works like a film director, bombarding us with shot and counter-shot. The reader races to the explosion… an actual shootout. The Wall is a fantastic, yet very funny, novel… Fast, hard and dangerous. A cheetah in book form.” Die Welt
“Sometimes a crime novel comes along that hits pay dirt. The Wall is one of those. It takes you up and rushes you through to the mad-cap ending and leaves you wanting more. The characters are wonderful, their antics more so, and, to top it all, the story is laugh out loud hilarious. Long have I suspected that this is how life plays out in South Africa’s gated communities. If you like your crime fiction fast and funny, then The Wall is your book.” Mike Nicol, author of Agents of State and Sleeper
“The story takes place over just two short hours — filled with twists and turns and non-stop chases along the way. The Wall is an intense thriller, with second-by-second near misses […] An exploration of racial profiling, class, exclusion, and chance.” Shelf Unbound Magazine