This collection of 23 essays on South Africa, from the 1950s to the 1980s, are divided into three parts: A Writer in South Africa (about the experience of living under a repugnant political regime), A Writer in Africa (travel pieces), and Living in the Interregnum (which vividly illuminates the writer's role in a society that practices apartheid and censorship).

Contents:

• Beginnings
  • A Bolter and the Invincible Summer
• A Writer in South Africa
  • Where Do Wishes Fit In?
  • Chief Luthuli
  • Great Problems in the Street
  • Censored, Banned, Gagged
  • Why Did Bram Fischer Choose Jail?
  • One Man Living Through It
  • Speak Out: The Necessity for Protest
  • A Writer's Freedom
  • Selecting My Stories
  • Letter from Johannesburg, 1976
  • Relevance and Commitment
• A Writer in Africa
  • Egypt Revisited
  • The Congo River
  • Madagascar
  • Pula!
  • Merci Dieu, It Changes
  • A Vision of Two Blood-Red Suns
• Living in the Interregnum
  • The Unkillable Word
  • Censors and Unconfessed History
  • Living in the Interregnum
  • The Essential Gesture
  • Letter from Johannesburg, 1985