Although he has lived in Europe since 1975, Christopher Hope's writing shows the lifelong influence of growing up under apartheid. In an unpublished interview with Rowland Smith in September 1998 he described himself as a South African with an Irish passport who lives in France. He went on to say that he has a strange love affair with South Africa, a lover he never knows whether to marry or divorce. Known first as a satirical poet, he gained his major reputation as a novelist and short-story writer. He has also become an established commentator in the British press and for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC); he has written television plays for South African television, has had radio plays performed on the BBC, and has written two books for children: The King, the Cat, and the Fiddle (1983) and The Dragon Wore Pink (1985). He still sees himself primarily as a poet, however...