What if you could be busy living, yet still miss your life?
That question sits at the heart of space between breaths, the debut book by Cape Town-born writer Justin P Van Tonder. A lived journey into presence, the book arrives this November for readers who recognise the rush towards the next meeting, the next achievement, the next version of themselves, and the quiet fear that something essential is being missed along the way.
Born from Van Tonder’s experience of walking beside his mother through a Stage 4 cancer diagnosis, and through love, uncertainty and loss, space between breaths reaches far beyond one family’s story. Through intimate storytelling, honest reflection and simple practices for everyday life, it invites readers to pause, to listen and to return.
“I didn’t set out to write a book about cancer, or even about grief,” says Van Tonder. “I set out to understand what happens when certainty disappears. What I found is that the life-changing moment is not always the one that stops your world. It is the moment you finally become present enough to notice the world you are already in.”
This is not a book about finding all the answers. It is a companion for the questions. A place to pause. To breathe. To listen. To return. Because sometimes we don’t need life to change. We simply need to become present enough to notice it.
Van Tonder, an only child raised by a single mother in Cape Town, has built a career across media, radio, brand and event strategy, and human performance. He currently holds a senior role at one of South Africa’s largest human performance organisations, designing programmes that connect people and inspire performance. Writing, he says, always lived quietly alongside that work. space between breaths became the reason he returned to it.
Today he writes and speaks about presence, awareness and connection. This is his first book and, in his words, a return to the voice that was there all along.
space between breaths will be available from November on Amazon.
What's your hot take on this story?
Publication details
Title: space between breaths
Subtitle: A Lived Journey into Presence
Author: Justin P Van Tonder
ISBN: 978-1-0483-4737-1
© 2026 JP van Tonder
