Skip to main content Skip to footer

Breath Excerpt

Breath

Author: Jan Vermeulen 

Age: 17+

Recommended Grades: Grade 11 Home Lamguage

A wild night of partying and a run-in with one of the most notorious drug dealers in Gauteng turns Barries’ life upside down. The police give him one simple choice – if he wants to stay out of jail, he has to spend the next six weeks on a farm, near a small coastal town in the Eastern Cape, right in the middle of nowhere. With his estranged father. Slowly but surely, Barries comes to realise that the bottle of brandy stashed under the bed is not the only – or the darkest – secret his father is hiding.


Breath, a translation of the best-selling Asem, is a gripping novel for teens that doesn’t hesitate to tackle difficult themes.

Click here to read chapter 1 of Breath by Jan Vermeulen.