In these stories, selected by Nadine Gordimer herself, unforgettable characters from every corner of society come to life. The African landscape they inhabit - from the River Zaire to Black Johannesburg to the hushed gardens of the white suburbs - is brilliantly depicted.
We meet the white woman whose determined understanding of racial injustice drives the black men she meets to exasperated ridicule; an old Afrikaner determined to enjoy his venture into a new kind of wilderness - an African state under black rule; a black student suddenly overcome by the need to escape the kind of emancipation white liberals plan for him.
The setting of these stories, in the era of 1952-1976, is South Africa, Nadine Gordimer's homeland; in their imaginative and compelling visions, their powerful implications are universal.
