In the village of Motabeng, Botswana - the place of sand - Elizabeth and her son have made their new home, far away from their old life in South Africa. But the past cannot be conveniently left behind at the border. Even though she may be free to reinvent herself in this new country, Elizabeth's mixed racial heritage and urban ways mark her as an outsider. A mind-bending novel that takes the reader in and out of sanity, this semi-autobiographical work tracks Elizabeth's struggle to emerge from the oppressive social situation in which she finds herself and from the nightmares and hallucinations that torment her.

Bessie Head was born of mixed parentage in 1937 in South Africa. She lived with foster parents until she was 13 and then attended a mission school until she was 18, before working as a teacher and a journalist for Drum magazine. An unsuccessful marriage, together with involvement in the trial of a friend, led her to apply for a teaching post in Botswana. Her first novel, When Rain Clouds Gather (1969), grew out of her experience living as a refugee in Botswana, and was followed by Maru (1971) and A Question of Power (1974). In 1977 she published The Collector of Treasures, a book of short stories exploring the position of women in Africa. In 1981, Serowe: Village of the Rain Wind was published, a portrait of a village brought together from notes and interviews spanning a hundred years. Bessie Head died in Serowe, Botwsana in 1986, aged only 49.