White is a Seattle-based publisher and editor. In this essay, White argues that Kohler's story must be read both literally and allegorically.

"Africans," by South African writer Sheila Kohler, is, at its heart, an allegory of power relations between individuals in a colonial setting. While the story can be appreciated on the level of its narrower, literal meaning, its characters and the struggles they wage are representative, to varying degrees, of the struggles of any colonial setting in the world where power was afforded and institutionally prescribed along the lines of race, ethnicity, and gender. For a full appreciation of "Africans," one must read the story both literally and allegorically.

story both literally and allegorically.

To understand the story's literal dimensions, one must first have a general knowledge of South Africa's system of apartheid and the way that system impacts Kohler's characters.

"Africans" is narrated by a...