In his final novel, renowned author Alex La Guma explores the tensions of a South African town fraught with the desire for revenge.

Out in the flat, featureless countryside, a small mining town in South Africa is refused access to water by their oppressors. Knowing that the rain is their last chance for survival, all they can do is wait...

As the dry summer wears on, the white Afrikaner townspeople are unaware of the storm brewing around them as, deep in the bush, a shepherd recalls the riddle of the butcherbird.

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.

'The greatest South African novelist of the 20th century.' The Times
'A central figure alongside Chinua Achebe [in] the making and consolidation of modern African literature.' Ngugi wa Thiong’o

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
One of the world's great novelists... a man who was not only a prodigiously talented writer but also a valiant hero of the anti-apartheid struggle. * The Root *

Alex La Guma was born in 1924 in District Six, Cape Town, and is revered as one of South Africa's leading activists and writers. La Guma was involved in political activism from a young age, having joined the Plant Workers Union of the Metal Box Company during his first job at a factory. He was subsequently fired for his role in organising a strike for better working conditions. He later became a founding member of the South African Coloured People's Organisation (SACPO) in 1953 and was repeatedly imprisoned by the South African government due to his anti-apartheid and communist activities.
Despite a total ban being issued on all his speeches and writings, his work is internationally renowned. His most famous works include A Walk in the Night (1962), In the Fog of the Seasons' End (1972), and Time of the Butcherbird (1979), all of which challenge the social systems of colonialism in South Africa.
After his release from prison in 1966, he and his family were exiled from South Africa. They relocated to London and later Cuba where La Guma served as the representative of the African National Congress.
La Guma died in 1985.