I remembered how, when I was a small child supposed to be asleep, my mother would slip into bed behind me and hold me. She would be trembling. She couldn’t hide it no matter how young I was. ‘Go to sleep, go to sleep,’ she’d say, as if that would save us.

Brent Meersman’s poignant memoir of a humble and eccentric upbringing in Cape Town, South Africa, in the 1970s and ’80s reads as a stirring eulogy to his mother, and a vivid snapshot of the times. His adoring mother, a horse-loving artist, received only rudimentary treatment for her schizophrenia; while his father battled a vicious whirlpool of alcohol-fuelled depression.

A Childhood Made Up is beautifully observed and filled with wry humour. Delicate yet brutal, this story pays testament to the power of love and the quiet heroism of resilience.

‘An engrossing, deeply personal and authentic narrative on an important topic. Powerful . . .’ - Dr Sean Baumann - Senior specialist psychiatrist

‘Infinitely poignant, acutely written, often witty . . . Through pain and grief, larded with comic flashes, Meersman skilfully guides us to an unexpected and deeply moving redemption.’ - Justice Edwin Cameron