Product Description

A very different memoir about growing up in South Africa.

'Funny, never self-pitying and a pleasure to read' – GUARDIAN

'[An] affectionate, generous book' - IRISH TIMES

‘Both haunting and funny. [Ecott] writes with compassion and honesty to give us a truly memorable account of an extraordinary upbringing' – Fergal Keane

'Unputdownable - never sentimental, extremely honest and with a positively Dickensian cast of characters’ - Emma Thompson (20080223)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #52559 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Tony Parsons
'Tim Ecott's Stealing Water is the greatest memoir to come out of white Africa since Rian Malan's My Traitor's Heart - and what is remarkable about it is that it reads like Angela's Ashes rewritten by Nick Hornby under a baking Johannesburg sun - ultimately it is the story of a family fighting to survive, and a tale told with warmth, humanity and humour to burn.'

Review
'Funny, never self-pitying and a pleasure to read' (Guardian )

'There are belly laughs enough, and some serious criminality to boot, but Ecott's outstanding talent as an author is for pathos. [It] moved me more than once to tears. As an author, Dickens is the comparison' (Matthew Parris, The Times )

'Engrossing [. . .] it's a love story without romance, or redemption, or a tidy resolution; and all the finer for it' (Mail on Sunday )

'The narrative crackles and fizzles along' (Irish Times )

'An extraordinary account of childhood in a baroque South Africa. Unputdownable - never sentimental, extremely honest and with a positively Dickensian cast of characters' (Emma Thompson )

'The greatest memoir to come out of white Africa since Rian Malan’s My Traitor’s Heart - it reads like Angela’s Ashes rewritten by Nick Hornby under a baking Johannesburg sun . . . told with warmth, humanity and humour to burn' (Tony Parsons )

'A truthful story brilliantly told - both funny and moving. I often had to lay the book aside to recover from laughter . . . Tim Ecott cleverly captures the feeling of an extraordinary life' (Lynne Reid Banks )

'Tim Ecott's story of growing up in Ireland and Africa is both haunting and funny. He writes with compassion and honesty to give us a truly memorable account of an extraordinary upbringing' (Fergal Keane )

'STEALING WATER is a simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking portrait of poor-white family life in the twilight of apartheid' (Richard E. Grant )

'Excellent' (Metro )

Fergal Keane
'Tim Ecott's story of growing up in Ireland and Africa is both haunting and funny. He writes with compassion and honesty to give us a truly memorable account of an extraordinary upbringing.'