She Plays with the Darkness

"Beautiful [and] thoughtful."—Carolyn See, The Washington Post

"Like all Mda's novels, including The Heart of Redness, this contemporary story of southern Africa places contemporary politics in the context of family and community, past and present. The setting here is a mountain village in Lesotho, on the South African border. Radisene is close to his beloved sister, Dikosha, until he leaves for the capital city, Maseru, where he becomes a smart ambulance-chaser, so successful in his machinations that he even sends money back to the village to build his mother a mansion. Dikosha refuses to have anything to do with him. In fact, she lives in her own world of magic and music, closely in touch with the dancers in the local cave paintings that were created by the Bushmen long before the Sotho came there and took the land. Mda's blend of magical realism and the cruel farce of national politics reveals the wildness everywhere. At the heart of the story is the mountain community, never idyllic, bursting with jealousy and spite, yet home through drought, snow, and mist."—Booklist