SOURCE: Booker, M. Keith. “Alex La Guma: In the Fog of the Seasons' End.” In The African Novel in English: An Introduction, pp. 155-70. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann, 1998.

In the following excerpt, Booker views In the Fog of the Seasons' End as a turning point in La Guma's revolutionary writing.

The political commitment central to all of La Guma's work is not unusual in African literature, but In the Fog of the Seasons' End (1972), in its elaboration of the possibilities for armed resistance to apartheid, represents a step toward the advocacy of violent revolution that is distinctive in African literature and a significant turning point in La Guma's career. The book focuses on the activities of a secret underground organization dedicated to the destruction of apartheid in South Africa. Its two principal protagonists are the “coloured” operative Beukes, who gives up a happy personal life to devote himself...