James Bray had been a senior civil servant in the colonial administration of an unnamed African country. That was before he was expelled for supporting black nationalists seeking independence for their country.

Ten years on, he was contemplating an invitation from Adamson Mweta, one of those nationalists, to return for the celebration of Independence. The prospect of work was there too, as the newly independent country would be establishing its own civil service, but would need experienced people in senior positions while things got going. Such posts when held by Europeans were always contracts with the expectation that the consultant go home at the expiration of the contract. Bray's wife, so comfortable in their elegant Wiltshire manor, would not accompany him, at least not yet.

Bray did make the trip. He worked to set up educational facilities. His friendship with Mweta underwent the expected shifts from the change in their mutual balance of power. Expectations in the country were high and unrealistic. There was no infrastructure to meet the people's hopes. The idea that years would be required to reach their economic goals was not a popular message, and politicians who delivered it suffered.

Resistance movements sprang up, led by those independence leaders left out of the new status quo. Over time they were joined by the disillusioned in the new government.

Bray, who had lost so much for his pre-independence support of the movement, understood the mechanics of the turmoil, however it didn't make it any easier for him, especially as the European community fractured itself around him, as it began the process of leaving. Isolation didn't help. Separation from his wife and home made them seem more unreal as the two fo them reached an implicit understanding that she would not be joining him.

Gordimer's book is an exploration of the promise and the possibilities that accompanied the process of independence. Written in 1971 at a time when so many former colonies were struggling to find a new peaceful way of life with opportunities for all now that the initial liberation conflicts were ending, it has an immediacy and a prescience later treatments of the era can't match.

Sullo sfondo delle tensioni per l’indipendenza africana e del termine dell’Apartheid, l’autrice dipinge un intenso quadro in cui pone in primo piano le storie delle persone. L’intreccio di vite non è mai banale, anzi tende a diventare spesso ostico per il lettore; in particolare se il lettore sono io e, figurarsi io in questo momento, in affanno a mantenere alta l’attenzione durante la lettura. Però l’opinione sui libri è di chi la scrive e non può che dipendere dalla fase di chi la scrive. E oggettivamente le storie della Gordimer, nonostante siano evidenti grandi potenzialità narrative, mi sono apparse inutilmente noiose, lo stile denso, ma ridondante, a volte quasi volutamente barocco. Ho impiegato quasi un mese per leggere un libro di cinquecento pagine, non sono in un buon momento, ma questo non è il mio passo di lettura, se va così vuol dire che il libro non mi stimola, non mi incuriosisce. ( )