This slim collection of short pieces (10 stories in only 61 pages) was apparently banned by the Rhodesian censors when it originally came out, but it's not an overtly political book: obviously the authorities were so paranoid by that time that any book in which a white character was represented as stupid, prejudiced or red-faced was seen as a threat.

The stories are quite understated, delivering their messages in unobtrusive bits of description rather than in the main line of the plot. But there's always a hefty punch there somewhere, even if what you've just been reading doesn't quite hit you until you're halfway through the next story. Mungoshi's characters are ordinary people, living in a largely-hostile world where they know poverty, family trouble, malignant ghosts, officialdom, or simple accidents can strike at any moment. Where it can be risky to stand up for what seems to be right, and where the migrant to the city has to feel an obligation to the people left in the village, even when he's out of work himself. Warm, compassionate writing, but always with a hard edge under it. ( )