First of December
$31.99
- Paperback
192 pages
- Release Date
28 April 2026
Summary
From the Booker and Women’s Prize long-listed author comes a novel about the week leading up to the moment all slaves were freed in South Africa.
First of December is set in the momentous week leading up to midnight on 1 December 1838, the day that South Africa’s slaves were finally emancipated. Karen Jennings’ compelling novel tells this story of history in the making. It follows the lives of three characters battling their own personal circumstances.
There is the sl…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781923058910 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 1923058916 |
| Author: | Karen Jennings |
| Publisher: | Text Publishing |
| Imprint: | The Text Publishing Company |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 192 |
| Release Date: | 28 April 2026 |
| Weight: | 238g |
| Dimensions: | 234mm x 153mm x 12mm |
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What They're Saying
Critics Review
This is an extraordinary novel. It is shattering, almost unbearable, yet – so good, so clear – it is unputdownable.’
* Roddy Doyle on Crooked Seeds *‘Absolutely brilliant and proof again…that fiction can tell us more about our human condition than most journalism can…an amazing book with an incredible story at the heart of it.’ * Michael Brissenden, ABC RN: The Book Shelf on Crooked Seeds *
‘An unsparing, yet profoundly beautiful novel.’ * Chigozie Obioma on Crooked Seeds *
‘Thoroughly absorbing… a small but powerful book, with the reach of a more capacious work, compounding merciless political critique and allegory rendered in tender prose.’ * Guardian on An Island *
About The Author
Karen Jennings
Karen Jennings is a South African writer whose novel An Island was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2021, with the follow-up longlisted for The Women’s Prize in 2025. She currently lectures at North-West University. She received the K. Sello Duiker Memorial Award in 2021, and has won the Africa Region Prize of the Commonwealth Short Story Competition. Karen founded The Island Prize for unpublished African authors to help them get published globally. Now in its fifth year the prize has helped authors from all over the continent.
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