A tragic-comic first novel set in South Africa at the turn of the century. The novel's hero emigrates from Lithuania because of anti-semitism. He arrives in South Africa and encounters a culture full of contradictions, peopled by bizarre and colourful characters: Breedt and Quinn, foes from the recent Boer War, locked in a silent battle of wills; April, their Shakespeare-spouting slave; Nakosa, the Bushgirl with extra breasts; Gommie, the half-caste who rises from the dead only to die again; the Scuteris, travelling opera singers-cum-barbers who bring a day of magical festivity to the isolated settlement of Middlepost. Antony Sher was born in South Africa in 1949 and settled in England in 1968. He has also written "Year of the King".