A Soldier's Embrace is a collection of thirteen of [Gordimer's] stories, all very short. Still, although they are short, and strong, like almost everything she writes, they are not easy to read. They hurt. They are [sad and beautiful]….

Women suffer deeply in these tales of Africa. But then, so do husbands, fathers, sons, lovers; and they suffer largely because of women. In some of the stories, notably in "Town and Country Lovers," women and men suffer together because of the Immorality Act that forbids sexual relations between the races. Yet the harsh Act seems only a cruel legality erected on some older and color-blind law of nature….

[The stories] raise far more questions than a mere sometime visitor to South Africa could pretend to answer. How she views the prospect of the racial war that lies just beyond the horizon of these stories remains unclear.

Yet, as...