Significantly at this stage, Gordimer had not yet explored a Black consciousness in any depth. Her treatment of Blacks is distant and indirect—her view primarily concerned with Whites and their inadequacies. However, with the intensification of the opposition to the regime from Africa, as the continent lurched into independence; after the horrific impact of Sharpeville and the beginnings of the South African revolution, and its complete failure in the face of the massive state response, the intensification of the apartheid regime gave the question of race an urgency and importance that dwarfed other considerations. It was racism that had produced the traumatic events of 1960 to 1966, therefore opposition to racism required a more concerted attempt to bridge the gap. In Gordimer's two books of stories written during the sixties, twelve of the thirty-one stories deal with race, a significantly higher proportion than before. More important than...