Guerrillas

From the Nobel-Prize-winning author comes a novel of exile, displacement, and the agonizing cruelty and pain of colonialism, both for those who rule and those who are their victims.

Set on a troubled Caribbean island, where “everybody wants to fight his own little war,” and where “everyone is a guerrilla,” the novel centers on Roche, once a hero of the South African resistance, now living on the island in a quiet role. When his English mistress arrives—restless, bored, and entranced by fantasies of native power and sexuality—he and she become drawn into a fatal connection with Jimmy Ahmed, a young guerrilla leader driven by rage, power and memories of England.

Against the larger anguish of the world they inhabit, these three characters act out a drama of death, hideous sexual violence, and political and spiritual impotence that profoundly reflects the ravages history can make on human lives.

“A brilliant novel in every way.… [It] shimmers with artistic certainty.” — The New York Times Book Review