This is the novel, first published in the US in 1980 and banned in his native South Africa, that earned André Brink his well-deserved international acclaim—fame that was reinforced by the film made from his book in 1989, starring Donald Sutherland and Marlon Brando, It tells the story of a middle-class teacher who finds no reason to question the state-sanctioned policy of Apartheid until the black janitor in his school (his gardener in the film) is arrested and dies in jail under mysterious circumstances. The teacher's change of mind—his search for the truth about the janitor's “suicide”—will have tragic consequences, which reveal the sordid mindset of a society predicated on the superiority of one race over another.