SOURCE: Green, Robert. “A Chopin in the Ghetto: The Short Stories of Alex La Guma.” World Literature Written in English 20, no. 1 (spring 1981): 5-16.

In the following essay, Green discusses the tension in La Guma's short stories between social determinism and humane idealism.

A gang of burglars is planning a robbery in a pub in District Six, Cape Town. One of them, Harry, is captivated by the music coming from a nearby house, in particular by a Chopin nocturne, and he goes to listen for a while before rejoining his criminal colleagues. He is momentarily touched by Chopin, but not reformed; the music overpowers him, but ordinary life, crime as an escape from poverty and racial discrimination, soon reasserts itself.

This episode from one of the short stories of Alex La Guma, the coloured South African writer now in exile in London, illustrates the two most common themes in...