This award-winning novel is set in Zanzibar in the years before the revolution. It brings together characters from the Indian and Swahili communities, portraying all the tensions between the communities, complications of inter racial relationships, the struggle of workers against colonialism and influence of students returned home from Soviet Union with revolutionary theories. The brilliantly sketched and unforgettable characters in the novel have put Adam Shafi at the forefront of Swahili novelists.