num_pages: 224
description: Damon Galgut's first collection of stories transports us to 1980s South Africa where politics begins at homeThe familythat small circle of beings where love should flourishcan be an arid and alienating territory where hatred and violence may ignite. The title novella is set in a house far out of town at the end of a dust road that rises up into the mountains. The desperate bondage of family life is revealed to a mother as she sits at her son's bedside where he lies sick perhaps dying. Galgut's understated prose unpicks the emotional paradoxes of family life with a surprising surreal twist. In a world where some of the most intimate relationships are those between strangers Small Circle of Beings describes how children must learn to pull away from their parents if they are to find their own way.
language: English
title: Small Circle of Beings
publisher: Atlantic Books