When the taxi Mandy is riding in runs out of petrol, she and her companion are stranded alongside a country road with their fellow passengers, all of whom are Zulu.

While they wait for help, friendships develop as they share problems and stories – and Mandy finds herself drawn to eight-year-old Jabulani, an Aids orphan. She determines to help the boy, but what she proposes to do is not an easy road to follow; she faces legal and logistical problems, and much opposition. There is one person who supports her though – a lawyer whom she meets in Durban. Meeting him adds to her dilemma and she is torn by conflicting loyalties.

A complex story that delves into the meaning of ubuntu, the politics of personal compassion, and the complications of responsibility, culpability, culture, and one’s position in the world.

About the author

Glynnis Hayward, a Pulitzer Center award-winning writer, was born and raised in South Africa. After graduating from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, she taught English in South Africa and London before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area. Here, while raising her children, she continued to teach English as a second language before beginning her writing career. A member of PEN South Africa with four previous novels published, she has had mention in the Commonwealth Journal of Literature alongside other South African writers and Booker Prize winners, Alan Paton, Doris Lessing, JM Coetzee and Nadine Gordimer.

Categories Fiction South Africa

Tags Glynnis Hayward LAPA LAPA Publishers New books New releases Roads and Bridges