The chameleon house

'... the past was not yet done with here, I thought to myself; its problems drip-fed into the present, muddying it endlessly.'

South Africa in a time of transition: a world of shifting boundaries and fluid identities, under siege from the relentless power of the past.

In this evocative and finely crafted debut collection, De Villiers deftly probes the ambiguities of this changing country. From the older woman with her much younger lover, trapped in Johannesburg traffic during 'load shedding' - the new leveler - to the 'gap year' graduates seeking some kind of permanence abroad, each story manages to contain entire worlds. These are lives of unconscious longing; of individuals - often willingly - cast adrift from their history, animated here in poetic yet pared-down prose.