A collection of essays by Nadine Gordimer, which illustrate the relationship between outer and inner change for the writer of conscience in South Africa. The essays range from the relative optimism of the 1950s, to the Sharpeville massacre, the banning in the 1960s of the ANC and the Pan-Africanist Congress, to the challenges of the Black Consciousness movement in the 1970s and the interregnum of the 1980s and also include pieces on travel.