Point of View

Achmat Dangor's Bitter Fruit is written in the third person point of view, focusing on the Ali family. The majority of the story is told through the narrator's description and the characters' inner thoughts.

The vast majority of the book focuses on the transformation of the members of the Ali family and the disintegration of the family itself. Dangor uses the third person perspective to follow the family members through their different lives and thoughts. With this perspective, the reader is able to see the inner thoughts of all the main characters as well as see the overall picture of their actions. The reader is a voyeur to the events of the novel, knowing what each of the characters feels and thinks about their situation and each other.

Setting

Bitter Fruit takes place in Johannesburg, South Africa in the years following the breakdown of apartheid. The...