How To Be a Revolutionary

by C.A. Davids

An extraordinary, ambitious, globe-spanning novel about what we owe our consciences

Fleeing her moribund marriage in Cape Town, Beth accepts a diplomatic posting to Shanghai. In this anonymous city she hopes to lose herself in books, wine, and solitude, and to dodge whatever pangs of conscience she feels for her fealty to a South African regime that, by the 21st century, has betrayed its early promises.

At night, she hears the sound of typing, and then late one evening Zhao arrives at her door. They explore hidden Shanghai and discover a shared love of Langston Hughes--who had his own Chinese and African sojourns. But then Zhao vanishes, and a typewritten manuscript--chunk by chunk--appears at her doorstep instead. The truths unearthed in this manuscript cause her to reckon with her own past, and the long-buried story of what happened to Kay, her fearless, revolutionary friend...

Connecting contemporary Shanghai, late Apartheid-era South Africa, and China during the Great Leap Forward and the Tiananmen uprising--and refracting this globe-trotting and time-traveling through Hughes' confessional letters to a South African protege about the poet's time in Shanghai--How to Be a Revolutionary is an amazingly ambitious novel. It's also a heartbreaking exploration of what we owe our countries, our consciences, and ourselves.

Genres: Fiction, China, Contemporary, South Africa, Historical Fiction, Africa, Politics

228 pages, Paperback

First published February 8, 2022

Reviews

[Alistair Mackay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed this novel. C.A. Davids’ writing has the kind of muted, controlled, claustrophobic quality that I love - a kind of minimalism, I suppose, but where the tension and unease build relentlessly in the background.

Told over three countries, and at various points in 20th Century history, the novel is centered on Beth, a South African diplomat living in Shanghai who was part of the student movement against apartheid in her youth, and Zhao, a retired Chinese journalist who lost family to the Great Famine that followed China’s “Great Leap Forward.” Their unusual friendship rescues them both from loneliness and despair, but also draws Beth (and then others) into the darker side of the modern Chinese surveillance state. A chilling reminder of the violence and pain of modern revolutions, and how in both South Africa and China’s case, the societies that followed these revolutions are nothing like the utopian dreams of those who fought for them.

Hauntingly told, expertly paced, tense and thought-provoking.

[Stitching Ghost · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one shouldn't have worked for me, it has most of the things I hate in a novel, multiple POV characters, back and forth in time and a rather slow start, with all of that going against it, it still managed to keep me engaged and not frustrated. The characters are compelling and they come across as very real and there's a constant low buzz of urgency to the story. The different POVs have distinct voices so it's pretty easy to keep up with who's talking. Overall, it's an elegantly constructed novel and also a pretty timely one.

More of a 4.25/4.5 than a true 4.

[Sookie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book that reinforces the fact that revolutions aren't local to anyone, a different form in a different geography with different impact, always exists. in C.A.Davids' How to be a revolutionary, revolutionaries merge in a small Chinese apartment at the house of a South African diplomat. Beth, has seen her share of violence during turbulent times in South Africa, Zhao - her neighbor has traumatic memories from the times of red army and the deep impact incident of Tiananmen Square has had on him. He isn't allowed to talk about it, but the two pick up Langston Hughes collection of poetry and letters to talk around their personal involvement in their country's spotty history. It all changes when Zhao disappears and leaves behind papers that outline the knowledge of the past. It has diplomatic and political impact on Beth which is more revealing than she had anticipated.

Davids uses Langston Hughes, mostly fictionalized (with very few of his letters from real life) but based on his actual travels to Asia. The fictionalized letters he exchanges with a South African man provides broader perspective to the nature of oppression, the nihilism which the oppressed embrace after decades of mistreatment and yet, feeling the hope of a better future, and fighting the fight today. However this sentiment is largely obfuscated by the very existence of Beth and Zhao whose political ideation doesn't go unnoticed or in some cases, unpunished.

This was a great read with the author challenging readers with morally complex scenarios and making their reader to think and then - feel.

Thank you to Netgalley and Verso Press for providing me with a free copy of this e-book in exchange for an honest review.

[Fran Hawthorne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an ambitious and beautifully written novel that, unfortunately, doesn't quite hit its mark.

Through an intricately interwoven plot, this book tells the stories of three "revolutionaries" of various types, spanning roughly 80 years and moving from South Africa to China to New York. The two most interesting narrators are Beth -- a Black South African who grows up under apartheid, falls under the spell of a slightly older activist named Kay in high school, then becomes a mid-level diplomat representing the post-apartheid government in China; and Zhao -- a Chinese peasant who survives the Great Famine of 1959-61, becomes a (government-authorized) journalist, then ultimately returns to his home village to try to learn the fate of his mother. Zhao and Beth are neighbors in a Shanghai apartment building, and Zhao surreptitiously gives Beth a thick typewritten manuscript that she can't read but knows is undoubtedly dangerous.

There's also a third narrative, a series of letters supposedly written by Langston Hughes during the 1950s, that interrupts the intensity of the other two stories and serves no apparent purpose.

In their own ways, Beth and Zhao are both dealing with complex questions of political activism and complicity. It's a rare treat to read a novel that focuses so thoughtfully on such issues.

The problem is that a good portion of Beth's dilemma is based on assumptions that are never explained. Her estranged husband, Andrew -- who is even more of a purist revolutionary than she is -- accuses her of complicity for working for the South African government. Since the book obviously takes place some years after the initial burst of post-apartheid idealism, anyone who reads the news knows that there would have been plenty of governmental corruption and ineptitude. But no specific "crimes" by Beth are cited, other than the vague charge of working for a government that failed to carry out all the dreams of her fellow freedom fighters. How horrible is her complicity, then? She could certainly have done a lot worse -- for instance, cashed in on political connections to wangle a cozy real-estate deal for herself. Indeed, it isn't necessarily dishonorable to work for an imperfect government in hopes of achieving small bits of progress from inside. By contrast, Zhao's and Beth's questionable youthful actions are rendered with more nuance.

[rina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love how this gave a voice to people of color. The storyline was great and made me quite emotional. I found it bit hard to follow the narration. I’m not familiar with the time period and the events that took place, which may have played a factor in this although I think a little more background in the book itself would have helped remedy this. As I read on though, things started to make more sense. I was able to form a clear picture of what the problems were and where the plot was going. The storytelling was complex, at least for me it was, the prose wasn’t simple but I still liked it.

The entire book had this vague air about it. There’s a lot to read between the lines and I probably didn’t pick up on all the subtleties. Overall, I think this is a relevant read, a mix of historical events with the present, always showing reality as it was and as it is.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc!

[Catarina Prata · Rating 3 out of 5]

*Copy provided by netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

How to be a revolutionary is a beautiful portrayle of how each and every single person can make a small difference, and that building a better life and a better world is based on fighting for what is right.
However, this three POV novel was sometimes too confusing, since we could not understand at first who were the main narrators of specific parts. I hope to read more from the author in the future.

[Malcolm · Rating 4 out of 5]

In How to Be a Revolutionary C. A. Davids builds an elegant multi-layered exploration of political struggle, of sacrifice and commitment, of searches for truth and honesty, and of the contradictions of Power. At the core of her tale is a mid-level South African diplomat, Beth, attached to the Shanghai Consulate, who befriends her upstairs neighbour, Zhao. They talk, share stories, visit tea houses, and generally do the things that friends do. But Beth carries a secret, a sense of guilt over the death of her school friend during the struggle in the last years of apartheid, and Zhao, formerly a journalist, knows altogether too many secrets about revolutionary China – the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the events of 4 June in Tiananmen Square, those that must never be mentioned. Between them, they are dangerous – as much to themselves as anyone else.

Davids builds an engaging three stranded novel that meets in Beth & Zhao’s friendship, its fourth thread. There is Zhao’s story of yearning and his search for the fate of his mother, who disappeared during the famine brought on by the Great Leap Forward. Alongside that, we travel with Beth at school as she gets drawn into the militant struggles of the end of apartheid, of protest, disruption and betrayal along with her attempt to atone before the Truth & Reconciliation Commission for whatever part she felt she played. Woven into these narratives are (fictional) letters from Langston Hughes to a correspondent in Cape Town that amongst other things discuss his travels through the Soviet Union and China. All these come together in Zhao & Beth’s friendship and Beth’s attempts to make sense of a mysterious manuscript.

Each of these four narratives finishes up confronting the interweaving of the personal and the wider struggle, the dilemma of the tensions between what we owe our nations, our politics and a sense of truthfulness, and the contradictions between integrity and pragmatism. And while it may be no surprise to say it doesn’t end well, it is a hopeful tale of people of conscience in a world of trade-offs, opportunism, the defence of privilege, and the lure of Power.

Davids’ characters are flawed and believable, well rounded and developed, where Beth’s battered and at times frustrating naïvety and Zhao’s cautiousness allow us to explore questions of commitment both in the abstract and to the particular in some of the great revolutionary moments of the 20th century – moments that become flawed and corrupted struggles for justice. She creates good characters, with depth hinted at, pointed to and carefully unwrapped in settings where a wrong move can be fatal, with brief allusive appearances by historical figures on the margins – mainly in the Hughes letters but also in Beth’s testimony and Zhao’s family stories. These help reinforce the realism of the text and in doing so give the story power and impact while allowing Davids to work towards an open ending where although some relationships are resolved the contradictions remain. It feels like a situation many of us on the Left with activist pasts and presents might just know.

It’s a reminder that there are many ways to be a victim in moments of systemic change – and even more so that there are ways to survive with integrity to continue that bigger struggle.

[Kelvin Mason]

How to Be a Revolutionary by C. A. Davids is an awe-inspiringly ambitious novel. It tells the stories of three people, each a revolutionary in their own way. Beth is a former student activist from the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, serving now as a disillusioned diplomat in the South African embassy in Shanghai. Her upstairs neighbour, Zhao, is a taciturn older Chinese man whom, though he denies it, is obviously writing in secret. The two become unlikely friends, together exploring Shanghai. Initially, they are united by a mutual regard for the writing of Langston Hughes – a character audaciously plucked from reality who becomes the novel’s third protagonist. Each character narrates their own story, often in the first person, Hughes by way of letters written to a fellow author in South Africa.
Beth relates the history of her activism in Cape Town and the violent loss of her closest friend, betrayed in an act of sabotage. In parallel, Zhao, a former journalist and mouthpiece for state orthodoxy, slowly recovers tragedies of Communist China’s history from the man-made “great famine” to the massacre of students in Tiananmen Square – a ghastly horror that finally splintered his political conditioning. Zhao explains that:
“there exists a mathematics of brutality where the amount of blood spilled is inversely proportional to the emotional resonance, so that after the first viewing of an act of inhumanity one begins to grow numb somewhere inside one’s head and heart, and after the second, third, and fourth struggle sessions, there comes a time when empathy is more a burden than an emotion.”
Langston Hughes, meanwhile, narrates his experience of race and class and life in the Harlem of his time, culminating in an appearance before the infamous Committee On Un-American Activities chaired by US Senator Joseph McCarthy. Permeating each of the narratives is a sense of political melancholy and personal loneliness.
Davids’ is at once a compelling and highly readable work of literature and a political treatise. What unites these revolutionaries, what is the commonality between their respective struggles against colonial oppression, idiosyncratic authoritarian communism, and paranoid right-wing anti-communism? Racism is a through-going theme, but arguably How to Be a Revolutionary is a critique of all government: of the state in all its guises, from violent oppression through institutional prejudice to the exercise of banal, bureaucratic power-over, controlling lives however they would-be lived. As the reader grapples with shifts in narrator, time and space, vital elements of the narrative, the novel can, initially, be a challenging read. In part two, though, it really catches fire and becomes unputdownable. The story of Beth and Kay in apartheid South Africa is particularly engaging. Finally, as Beth and Zhao collude in a perilous act of revolution that could threaten the chilling grip of the Chinese state on its cowed citizens, the story is suffused with nerve-jangling jeopardy and a tangible sense of dread.

[Tim Parsons · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you’ve read some of my other reviews, you will know that The Book Lounge, Cape Town is, both, a favoured haunt and, a source of many recommendations. Recently, it celebrated its 15th birthday and a number of Cape Town’s finest writers attended a celebration to pay tribute to the role TBL has played in their career and reading history. For the first time, the “team” awarded a Book Of The Year, which went to C.A.Davids for "How to be a Revolutionary”. Given the diverse reading interests that the staff hold, a unanimous decision gives you an idea of how marvellous this novel is. A cover review says “an ambitious book, brimming with subtle insights and documenting the human cost of oppression and injustice on three continents” This is so precise that I think my interpretation would be lacking. It was a joy to read, its prose, its instricacy and its purpose. A fitting book to end my reading year and a delight that it was written in my, adopted, home town.

[Tesla A · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.2! This is a revolutionary masterpiece - weird, unruly but still a rare masterpiece telling a cross-continental story through the gaps and shadows of history. If the beginning is a a bit “que, what’s all this unrelated frolicking, struggle, and tragedy?”, just persist, it shifts into unputdowndable soon. All the emotions abound…

We need more of such stories. The Capetown-Shanghai-Harlem tryst of mini-revolutions made this book truly revolutionary. We need more transcontinental stories like this.

[Anaïs Cahueñas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A vivid and politically charged story of espionage and love, expanding and weaving effortlessly through generations and continents. Part thriller with the dive into censorship and state surveillance, along with a resolute unearthing of events that shame nations.

We follow three storylines, a South African diplomat named Beth working in Shanghai, her neighbor Zhao who suffered through the atrocities of Tiananmen Square and Mao’s totalitarian regime, and Langston Hughes who shines a light on how BIPOC were treated in America during the 1930’s.

It interweaves and draws parallels between the historical events and political upheavals of South Africa, China and the United States. Although fiction, important themes and world events are discussed such as apartheid and post-apartheid, the McCarthy hearings, Tiananmen Square, Mao’s great famine, modern day censorship in China and more.

An ambitious kaleidoscope of a novel that forces you to question your own moral compass should governmental injustice and the rise of a political revolution call for it.

[kaz auditore · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was great, a story mixed with historical events, and how it was from inside and the reality of it, it was very interesting.
We follow three storylines one that is the story of a South African diplomate, Beth, moving to China who will meet Zhao who have seen things he isn't allowed to talk about (the horrors of Mao, the atrocities of Tiananmen Square). This will pull Beth into political machinery and become target of interrogations because of her friendship with Zhao; There's also th storyline of Langston Hughes travelling in Asia in the 1930's where there's a glimpse of how Black Americans were treated in and out the US.

[PJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a long heartbreaking journey that allowed me to suffer with the characters and cry with pain for the injustice. The flashbacks were the most interesting of the book, however, the drama and suspense had me on my the edge of my seat.

[Qidurian · Rating 5 out of 5]

For fans of Katie Kitamura's Intimacies. Morally complex, sophisticated storytelling. Forces you to question which way your own compass would turn in times of revolutionary necessity.

[Glen Retief · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gorgeous epic novel spanning three great revolutions on three continents.

[Amar · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars
Such different voices. Well written. Moving and historically informative

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one really snuck up on me. Excellent book. Might revise up to five stars.

[Jacob Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. This book really floored me. Davids does an excellent job at capturing the ambivalence of what comes 'after the revolution', after apartheid, after Mao, and perhaps in a more understated tragedy, what happens to a life when revolution never arrives. The quotidian heartbreak of the everyday betrayals of revolutionary ideals, and more importantly, it's idealists really spoke to me.

The interweaving of the three narratives was deftly done (if unsubtle), and very effective. The pace was brisk, and the writing immersive and compelling.

[Niamh Walsh-Vorster · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good. The middle I felt became a bit tedious, and could have done without the Langston Hughes narrative, but all tied in well at the end.

[rizka · Rating 4 out of 5]

how does one become a revolutionary? well… depends. just like this book is trying to illustrate, it’s not as heroic and utopic as it seems.

[jq · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5) a valiant effort, but not very convincing

[koyna · Rating 4 out of 5]

a very lovely book, across south africa and china, that bears witness, gives testimony, and centers friendship (making it so that these are all the same thing)

[Kathryn Green · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this loves of work. Not my usual style but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an excellent book. Full of quality writing!
- Sarah Levion

[Shawna-leze · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gripping read about characters who share a lot of the same trauma, prejudices, anger and violence in their respective countries. I enjoyed how the author had these different voices speak to one another and how connected it made the novel feel, even if there are large time&generational gaps between the characters.
How to be a revolutionary? Shortly, but not easily: The pen remains the mightiest sword.

[Tiah]

Read the feature in the Sunday Times: https://bit.ly/37MpZHV

~Sometimes it felt as if I were speaking into a body of water here: words spoken but the meaning distorted, warped in translation, even with people who had a strong command of English, so I was learning to adapt.~

~The tourists would rearrange your living space while subtly demanding outings to all the beauteous far-flung spots; only remembering when they reached the destination that they still weren't welcome, still weren't allowed because they, like you, were still the same shade of inferior.~

~Chinese take tea for respect, for family. Sometimes for discussing important matters. Even, sometimes, to give a apology.~

~Despite everything, I believed that a better society was being shaped, and that all the sacrifice and blood and loathing would not be in vain.~

~Thank you.
For friendship.
And melancholy too.~

~Grief blotted all the light. only ever letting in a ray at a time, if that, before guilt shut it out again.~

~But did everyone only bow and scrape in supplication? They did not. And they died.~

~Now I must construct a human being, bit by bit, building her whole from bones, dragged from the grave.~

~I offer you advice: be careful of this writing life. It will devour you from within and perhaps from without too.~

[Mish Middelmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book because the author shares, no-holds-barred, both what is beautiful and what is ugly about the people, the lands, and the histories of South Africa, China and the USA - all countries I feel strong bonds with. We also share a passion for a better world and an exposure to the awkward truths that undermine simple revolutionary idealism.

And she does it all through very readable storytelling, with characters who are ordinary, just like you and me, living ordinary lives and caught up in the often unfathomable waves of history.

There is a patient honesty in this book about the limits to revolutions and revolutionaries. She also exposes the ways that countries, cultures, economic and political achievements are often (maybe always?) built on blood and tears, anger and betrayal. And the book shares deep and sadly pragmatic wisdom about the depravity humans can and do practice while pursuing what are, or recently were, idealistic goals. Finally there is an abiding hope and commitment to a better life for all, that is for me as spiritually pragmatic as the ugly truths are politically necessary.

The marvellously intertwined stories of the South African, Chinese and American change agents (revolutionaries in the book's title) are charted in a way that rings deeply true for me. For example, coming from a background more privileged than those she joins in the struggle, the narrator experiences

When the police stayed at bay, watching only from a distance, a joyousness that Beth had never before known overtook everything. To know who you were and what you stood for, well, Beth had never felt that kind of freedom.

Yet for her and her other key characters in the USA, China and South Africa, official violence is close by and quick to strike with extreme force.

There's a richness to the narrative because key characters are all people of colour, all in relationships that cross racial and international boundaries, all grappling with everyday racism as a part of their reality that affects them but doesn't stop them working for change. For example, here are the words attributed to the black American poet Langston Hughes remembering his trip to China in the 1930s

we worked secretly (or perhaps not so secretly) to understand, to name, the spirit that had brought us, two writers from ostensibly different worlds, together. We found we were not so different; our fights for Chinese rights and black rights seemed to us similar and moreover requiring internationalist actions.

Some of the themes I thought were quite particular about South Africa's post-apartheid struggles turn out to have a more universal relevance, specially as I read these pages in North America.

Our country’s peaceful political reconciliation had resulted in this unholy matrimony between the staff and supporters of the old regime, and those of the incumbent government.

I thought this rubbing of shoulders between old and new guard was very necessary and maybe a good thing, but indeed the "unholy matrimony" seems to have involved passing on more of the predatorial habits of the old elite than their useful technical and managerial skills.

Likewise, this theme from China's history:

when I was born, good family was a landlord’s family; during the revolution if you poor or peasantry: good family. Now, good family is for a famous, rich Party family

Such resonance with my contemporary friends like the light brown mixed race man who is considered white in Mexico and black in the USA!

Davids' summary of Chinese history after Mao is pithy and globally relevant:

after [Mao's] death, the monochrome of the previous decade began slowly to crack. Some say this was so because of Deng Xiaoping, the Party’s new leader, others say that the people had willed it so inch by inch... After the angry hungry decades, the countryside began to heal and China was on a path of growth. Art, books and cinema were free to be cherished.

How much political and cultural change is wrought by high profile leaders, and how much by ordinary people who each feel individually powerless?

She dares to tell the horrible story of Tiananmen Square, including voices on many sides of the conflict. But for the key character Zhao

Either my life began or ended that day. I do not know which, but a sort of doorway opened up to everything else: my life until then, the present in which I found myself, and my mother’s disappearance. But when I walked away from the square that day, I also walked squarely into my own life.

And from here, as she does again and again in this book, Davids asks the powerful personal questions about how we respond to injustice in our own world, our own families. How natural it is to suppress the memory of loss, and how painful it is to look loss, betrayal and brutality squarely in the face, specially when it is perpetrated by those who were "on your side" in your people's fight for freedom.

And where in the world is this pattern NOT true? She write it of the children of high party cadres in China, but I own it much closer to home:

The kids of the post-revolution have been infinitely distracted with admiring the things our parents were forbidden.

The theme of hanging onto belief in one's revolutionary comrades who lose their way, really cuts deep:

When you were exposed to corruption, as you must have been many times— but no longer said anything to me about it— did you at least report it?

While these words are spoken by a South African to a struggle comrade who becomes a diplomat for the new government, they slice open the painful wounds incurred all around the world when idealistic change agents gain power and begin to shut down avenues for criticism.

Through all the human travails shines a thread of love for the land and all the other living things on this earth, from the Yellow Mountain in China to the waves on the Cape beaches to the vibrant music and poetry of Harlem in the 1920s. It helps my heart and soul take in the sad stories she tells about predatory leaders and revolutions gone awry.

To be human is both to strive for a better world, and yet unable to avoid perpetuating many of its problems.

[Marvin · Rating 3 out of 5]

After recently watching a film about coming to terms with betrayals during the Spanish Civil War and reading a novel about coming to terms with betrayals during a later conflict on Cyprus (The Island of Missing Trees), I have now consumed this fine novel about betrayals during the struggle to overturn apartheid in South Africa AND during the years after the Chinese Revolution. A young black woman, a diplomat from South Africa, becomes friends in Shanghai with a 60-something Chinese journalist, both of whom suffer from memories of events in their countries. Interspersed between their stories are some fictional letters written by Langston Hughes to an anonymous writer in South Africa, some recounting his appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee in the U.S.; these letters were not well integrated into the novel, even given that the first one was supposedly written during his 1933 visit to Shanghai. Nonetheless, this is a worthy addition to the many fine novels that I've read set in 20th-century China.

[john callahan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting novel about a few people in vastly different parts of the world but who have close connections.
We meet Beth, the main character, when she is a highschooler in Cape Town South Africa, where she joins another young woman, Kay, in the anti-apartheid struggle; years later, we meet an adult Beth, who is working at the South African consulate in Shanghai.
In Shanghai she meets a somewhat unusual man, Zhao, who shows her Shanghai and the remains of a pre-boom and even pre-Communist Shanghai. But why does he type all night?
Their chapters alternate with (fictional) letters that poet Langston Hughes writes from Harlem in the 1950s to a South African writer. Hughes had, in real life, travelled to the USSR, Shanghai, Japan, and South Africa.
The adult Beth and the Zhao have serious questions about their pasts that they need answered.
It's a novel about individuals' experiences of world historic events, truth, ethics, memory, and writing.

[Roelia (Roelia Reads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

"How to be a Revolutionary" spans over continents (Africa, China and USA) following multiple POVs. It does mainly centers around a South African diplomat, Beth, who gets transferred to Shanghai. Life in Shanghai is a new start for her - a clean slate, and escape. Her neighbour and new friend Zhao, brings an interesting dimension to her new life, and even more so after he mysteriously disappears one day. As the story unfolds we learn more about the circumstances that led the Beth being where she is. Although this is a work of fiction, historical events (like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, apartheid (and post-apartheid) South Africa, Mao's Great Famine, the 'unspoken' horror of Tiananmen Square and censorship) comes together to weave an intricate and beautifully written story.