Description
The Texture of Shadows is set at the turn of the decade 1989-90, a highpoint of hope in South Africa's political history. The nation is abuzz with rumours of Nelson Mandela's imminent release, the dismantling of guerrilla camps by the African National Congress and the possibility of a realistic peace process. The central plot concerns the return of a band of exiled Umkhonto we Sizwe soldiers to South Africa in 1989. Their expectation after years of training and fighting in Angola is to find a changed and improved society, one which they were instrumental in bringing about. They have been ordered to carry and deliver a sealed trunk to an unspecified destination in South Africa and it soon becomes evident that this trunk makes them a target. A number of different parties set out to separate the men from the trunk and its mysterious contents. The novel recognises the hopefulness of the time, but focuses on the violence. Langa's characters are hardened guerrilla fighters, corrupt police officers, ex-political prisoners and the victims of abuse by a system of taboos, bannings and beatings. There are cracks in this steel-edged world that love, beauty, poetry and dance are allowed to fill, but only briefly and often with little lasting effect.
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