by Norman Rush
First published 1993
American and European expatriates drift through their adopted home of Botswana, caught between worlds they never quite fit. These white foreigners find themselves in absurd situations that reveal both their own limitations and the complexities of their African surroundings. A development worker struggles with good intentions gone awry. An academic's wife confronts the gap between her expectations and reality. Each character faces moments where their assumptions crumble, leading to encounters that are simultaneously comic and unsettling. Rush places his protagonists in scenarios where cultural misunderstanding breeds both humor and genuine pathos. The stories capture people suspended between their origins and their chosen exile, neither fully at home nor entirely foreign. Through their fumbling attempts at connection and meaning, these expatriates reveal the universal human comedy of displacement and the search for purpose in unfamiliar territory.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, african-literature, contemporary
Vibes: intimate, thought-provoking, unsettling
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, universal-human-comedy
Setting: Botswana, Europe, United States
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
150 pages · Paperback · Trafalgar Square