In the following essay, originally written as a foreword to her collection, Selected Stories, Gordimer outlines her philosophy of short story writing. "The Train from Rhodesia" is included in the collection.

After I had selected and arranged these stones, the present publisher asked me to provide some kind of introduction to them. If they were now making their first appearance I might have recoiled from this invitation, but they have all been printed and some reprinted, and have therefore been through a period of probation. Whatever I may say about them now cannot alter what has been said by others, and can hardly increase or lessen the likelihood of their being read—-that must depend on the stones themselves

The words are William Plomer's, but the attitude comes so close to my own that I do not hesitate to fly his declaration at the masthead of this...