As a historian, author, and research fellow at the International Studies Group at the University of the Free State, Karen Horn investigates individuals’ experiences on the home front and the battlefront, looking for humanity in the fog of war. In her latest book Prisoners of Jan Smuts, Horn draws on memoirs and letters to recount the stories of the Italian prisoners-of-war (POWs) who were incarcerated in South Africa during the Second World War. After the war, many opted to remain in South Africa; sculptor Edoardo Villa left an important mark on the art world, for example, and businessman Aurelio Gatti built an ice-cream empire – to the delight of generations of South Africans. Horn’s first book In Enemy Hands: South Africa’s POWs in WWII was nominated for the Alan Paton Sunday Times non-fiction award in 2016.