Time of the Butcherbird

In his final novel, Alex La Guma explores the tensions of a South African town fraught with the desire for revenge. Glimpsing into precolonial days and the aftermath of the Boer War, Time of the Butcherbird is a powerful reminder of the communities that were wrecked by conflict and dispossessed of their own land. Out in the flat, featureless countryside, a small mining town in South Africa is refused access to water.

Knowing that the rain is their last chance for survival, all they can do now is wait... As the oppressive summer wears on, the white Afrikaner townspeople are unaware of the storm brewing around them. In the bush, a shepherd recalls the riddle of the butcherbird.

An impactful and incisive novel, Time of the Butcherbird cements Alex La Guma as one of South Africa's most prominent political writers, exposing the ugly reality of the self-professed 'civilised' oppressors and a society brimming with anger. 'The greatest South African novelist of the 20th century.' The Times'[Alex La Guma] is a central figure alongside Chinua Achebe [in] the making and consolidation of modern African literature.' Ngugi wa Thiong'o