From Publishers Weekly
Nobel Prize winner Gordimer's latest collection of short fiction brilliantly illuminates the consequences of political repression. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Innocents who end up in bed with terrorists; children and adults entangled in the barbed wire of political events they can't control or understand. In her latest collection of stories, Gordimer revisits old but rich territory--South Africa--and other locations where the balance of order has gone awry. Gordimer's ability to transcend racial and gender barriers comes forth both in the collection as a whole and within individual stories that are told from multiple perspectives, such as "What Were You Dreaming?" This volume of fiction burns with the brilliance readers might expect to find only in an anthology. The sophisticated surprise endings found * in "Some Are Born to Sweet Delight" and "The Moment the Gun Went Off" * strike at the gut as effectively as the simple parable "Once Upon a Time," which tells of a family caged in by its fear. Highly recommended. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/91.- Rita Ciresi, Pennsylvania State Univ., University ParkCopyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
As usual, a sharp-eyed record of human flaws from Gordimer (My Son's Story, 1990, etc.) in this, her latest collection of short fiction. Gordimer, whose eye for detail and nose for current pathologies is as keen and cold as a clinician's, is, here, less thematically coherent and less politically certain. The stories, with few exceptions, are mostly about the interregnum that is now South Africa. Some--like ``The Moment Before the Gun Went Off,'' in which a white farmer accidentally kills his beloved but unacknowledged black son, and ``What Were You Dreaming?,''in which white liberals encounter a derelict black alcoholic--are reworkings of by-now too-familiar themes. In the title story, a young Portuguese man sits in a hotel room in Mozambique remembering. Born in Mozambique, he had joined the counterrevolution but was sickened by the sight of black refugees--the victims of his side's policies- -yet cannot forget the terrible things he has seen: ``...the orphaned children running in packs round the rubbish dumps, the men without ears and the women with a stump where there was an arm.'' In ``Comrades,'' a liberal white woman brings some young blacks to her house for a meal but realizes as she talks to them that nothing else but hunger is real. Perhaps the most horrifying story is ``Once Upon a Time,'' which begins as a children's story but soon becomes a disturbing morality tale about the inevitability of horrific death for a white South African family trying to shut out the terrifying world with more and more walls and gadgets. Once again, vintage Gordimer--as always intelligent, if a little too cool-eyed and restrained in the telling. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

ANNOTATION

A new collection of short stories from the author of My Son's Story. In 16 stories ranging from the dynamics of family life to the worldwide confusion of human values, Nobel Prize-winner Nadine Gordimer gives readers access to many lives in places as far apart as suburban London, Mozambique, a mythical island, and South Africa.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

A new collection of short stories from the author of My Son's Story. In 16 stories ranging from the dynamics of family life to the worldwide confusion of human values, Nobel Prize-winner Nadine Gordimer gives readers access to many lives in places as far apart as suburban London, Mozambique, a mythical island, and South Africa.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Written with consummate artistry, this South African writer's latest collection of short fiction illuminates her concerns about the human consequences of political repression. Gordimer ( A Sport of Nature ; Something Out There ; The Essential Gesture ) is a member of the African National Congress, vice-president of PEN International and an executive member of the Congress of South African Writers, and actively opposes censorship in South Africa. All of these involvements color her fiction, yet these stories are far from mere politically correct mouthpieces. In 16 tales, most with a South African setting, Gordimer explores the ironies and values of human relations and expectations with a deft and frequently poignant touch. In ``Safe Houses'' a revolutionary finds sanctuary and a surprising connection in the home of a surburban socialite. ``The Moment Before the Gun Went Off'' gives us an astonishing revelation of the ironic truth behind the accidental death of a black farmhand in the truck of a white farmer. An innocent love plays a role in revolutionary destruction and mayhem in ``Some Are Born to Sweet Delight.'' Gordimer has rarely been more profound or more quietly brilliant than in these exquisitely subtle stories, whose power is equal to a thousand manifestos. (Sept.)

Library Journal