This collection of short stories set in the Karoo, in combination with excerpts from Athol Fugard's diaries and his attempt to tell the story of the suicide of Pumla Lolwana, is a new departure.

This collection of short stories set in the Karoo, in combination with excerpts from Athol Fugard's diaries and his attempt to tell the story of the suicide of Pumla Lolwana, is a new departure. South Africa's master playwright has, until now, not ventured into prose writing, a medium free of the travails of acting and directing. What emerges from the weave of fact and fiction in this prose collection is not only the end product of Fugard's imagination but a subtle portrait of Fugard himself in life and at work.