Gordimer fashions a grand, state-of-her-nation novel about South Africa from Presidents Mandela to Zuma ... A mightily serious and impressive book (Daily Mail)Nadine Gordimer is a towering figure in South African literature, and, at 88, remains a vital, productive force (Metro)At best her free-style, high-velocity storytelling [Gordimer] delivers a visceral immediacy and intensity that lets us inhabit the minds, and share the views, of her characters with the minimum of novelistic fuss ... Written with a ferocious, high-definition attentiveness ... Gordimer, a nonpareil observer of the outer and inner life alike, sustains her heroic mission of witness and warning (Independent)A complex book and a pained examination of the difficulties posed by a freedom that was won by imperfect human beings (Guardian)This is a book of great thematic richness and quiet brilliance (Sunday Times)This is an important and highly topical book about how hard it is to sustain hope and idealism in the wake of a revolution ... Gordimer has written an angry, melancholy, brave book (Spectator)