False Bay
Set between the mountains and seas of Cape Town’s False Bay, this sweeping novel traces the lives of survivors, outcasts, lovers, and ghosts. From Holocaust memories to apartheid’s scars, from convent walls to drag balls, each voice tells a fragment of a larger story about loss, belonging, and the search for truth. Haunted yet luminous, polyphonic yet deeply intimate, False Bay is a South African epic of family, faith, queerness, and the sea that binds them all. For readers of Zoë Wicomb, Damon Galgut, and Toni Morrison, this is a daring novel where history collides with myth, and the living are never far from the dead.
About the Author
David Dunn
William Dunn is a South African urbanist and lawyer based in Cape Town. His work engages deeply with questions of place, memory, and belonging, informed by his professional background in city-making and justice. Passionate about LGBTQ issues, spirituality, and Catholicism, Dunn brings these concerns into his fiction with nuance and urgency. False Bay is his debut novel.
Reviews
“I just finished False Bay by William Dunn and found it absolutely captivating. The way the stories weave together to explore memory, family, and LGBTQ identity is really moving. It uses the history of the area so well to ground the characters’ lives and it’s left me thinking a lot about how complex our relationships with one another truly are.”
Paul Williamson
“I found the book an honest portrayal of an alternative lifestyle. William Dunn handled all the people as human beings and not judgemental. I look forward to the next publication.”
Ursula Vivier
“FABULOUS. Couldn’t put it down. Magical, whimsical, passionate, shocking, observant. Clever. Unexpected. Completely enthralled by it and your characters and the story telling. Love it.”
David Hart
A sweeping, mystical epic set against the backdrop of Cape Town, that weaves together the experiences of queer individuals and those navigating the racial categorizations of both the apartheid and post apartheid era. It is a beautiful tapestry of found family, faith, and loss all bound together by the omnipresent sea.
Netgalley review
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