Halley's Comet

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1980s
80s music
A01=Hannes Barnard
abuse
adult fiction
Africa
Afrikaner
anti-apartheid
apartheid
Author_Hannes Barnard
Black Lives Matter
bombing
books for teens
Category=YFT
civic duty
collateral damage
colonial
colonial legacy
colonization
coming of age
consequences
courage
Diversity
eq_bestseller
eq_childrens
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_teenage-young-adult
fiction for teens
forbidden
forbidden friendship
forbidden love
freedom
freedom fighter
friendship
Halley's Comet
high school drama
high school romance
historical
historical fiction
historical fiction for teens
history for teens
immigration
Indian
language
legacy
love
mature
mature language
Me Too
mean girls
multicultural
multicultural. Diversity
overcoming
overcoming racism
post-colonialism
privilege
race
racism
rape
responsibility
rugby
segregation
sexual violence
small town
South Africa
South African Indian
sports
sports drama
teen romance
teenage drama
teenager
terrorism
translated young
translated young adult fiction
translation
truth
victims of war
violence
white privilege
Zulu

Product details

  • ISBN 9781946395559
  • Dimensions: 133 x 203mm
  • Publication Date: 17 Mar 2022
  • Publisher: Catalyst Books
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Paperback
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A 2024 IBBY Honour List Selection 

A CBC Spring 2024 Showcase Selection

In the final years of South Africa’s Apartheid era, an unlikely trio—a sheltered white rugby player, a black farmworker’s son, and an Indian shopkeeper’s daughter—discover the consequences of knowing the truth and having the courage to speak it. Halley’s Comet is the coming-of-age story of Pete de Lange, a white 16-year-old schoolboy, set in small-town South Africa in 1986. Pete lives a relatively sheltered life, primarily concerned with girls and rugby— until one January night changes everything. Thrust together with two complete strangers—Petrus, a black farmworker’s son and Sarita, an Indian shopkeeper’s daughter—the trio find themselves running for their lives from the vicious Rudie, whose actions will ripple far beyond that fateful night. This era-defying friendship—sparked by a shared secret— challenges everything Pete thought he knew and believed. And when anti-Apartheid revolutionaries set their sights on the town, it will change the course of the three young people’s lives forever. Halley’s Comet is a story of friendship, love, change, taking chances, hope, a comet, and some pretty cool 80s music.

Hannes Barnard is a South African-born multi-genre author of both English and Afrikaans novels. He debuted in 2019 with the YA novel, Halley se komeet, which he translated into English as Halley’s Comet. In 2020, Wolk, his apocalyptic YA adventure was released, and coming up in 2022 is his crime novel, die wet van Gauteng. When not writing, traveling, or planning his next adventure, Hannes works in marketing. He has called England and Seychelles home but now lives in Johannesburg with his wife.

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