None to Accompany Me

In this, Nadine Gordimer's most intimate novel yet, she tells the story of two couples, one black, one white, whose relationship evolve as their homeland heads towards majority rule. At the center of the book is Vera Stark, a self-possessed, mature woman whose internal world reflects the changing political landscape of her country. Written with Gordimer's characteristic clarity and intelligence, her infallible eye for the telling detail, and her concern with the ways in which social forces manifest themselves in the particular lives of individuals, 'None to accompany me' illuminates the hazards and the hopes of life in post-apartheid South Africa. It is a deeply felt, complex portrait of a society and its people in transition, keenly observed by a master storyteller at the top of her form.