This collection of four plays, set in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, portrays tense family relationships or situations against a background of wider suffering and tensions, engaging our sympathies for South Africans of all races.

'elegant reissue' -Plays International, Summer 2000'They are the wonderfully moving and amusing 'Sizwe Bansi is Dead',... 'The Coat' (previously unavailable), the urgently profound 'The Island'... Anyone interested in freedom or drama should buy this book.' Day by Day

The brothers of Blood Knot-- one dark-skinned, one light-- betray their dreams of a better future with the impossible wish of passing for white. In Hello and Goodbye, a poor white brother and sister churn their once-promising past to comprehend their bleak present. Boesman and Lena, a black husband and wife, tramp homelessly through a severe and unforgiving landscape, discovering strength and recovering devotion through an encounter with a mysterious old African.

Blood Knot is a parable of two brothers who share a one-room shack near Port Elizabeth, South Africa: Zachariah is dark-skinned and Morris, light-skinned. They share the same mother but find their differences lead them to a common bond as brothers and men. Saving to buy a farm where they may retire Morris is the "slave", cooking and cleaning while Zach earns money for them both. When Morrie joins a lonely hearts club on his brother's behalf, they find themselves awaiting the visit of a White woman who will never arrive.

Two Black scavengers emerge from the underbrush loaded with their total possessions: the makings of a shack and a battery of pots and pans, but nothing to cook in them.