A review by rkkmistry
July's People by Nadine Gordimer

4.0

ok this book was very cool. So it's like a speculative fiction account of a world where South African apartheid is ended by a violent black uprising. which is very cool because I think it was written a bit before apartheid ended and I don't think I know of much speculative fiction that deals with imaginings of such real and contemporary political issues—but where it really gets you is what it's actually about. The book just chronicles a liberal white family whose black servant brings them back to his village to help them hide out. Like it's ultimately pretty mundane plot wise,, there's no dramatic escape, nor do we hear much about the revolution itself. The result is this very very nuanced portrait of racial issues that I feel like really just speaks to how complicated they are without like being super apologist.