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Town and Country Lovers | Introduction

Published in Nadine Gordimer’s 1980 short story collection, A Soldier’s Embrace, ‘‘Town and Country Lovers’’ is like many of the author’s works in its depiction of strained race relations in South Africa. Gordimer often writes about the daily lives of people, both black and white, who are affected by the restrictive measures taken by the government during apartheid. In this story, she shows the devastating consequences of violating the legal and societal rules about interracial relationships.

Town and Country Lovers Summary

Part I
‘‘Town and Country Lovers’’ is a two-part story about interracial lovers who suffer the consequences of breaking the rules forbidding such relationships. In the first story, solitary geologist Dr. von Leinsdorf meets a young, colored (mixed-race) African girl who is a cashier at the grocery store across the street from his apartment. When the store is out of the razors he likes, she makes an effort to get some for him. He asks her to bring them to his apartment, and she soon begins to deliver his groceries for him a few times a week. Before long, the two become sexually involved. He enjoys her company and her sexual availability to him, and he tries to help her by teaching her to swim, type, and improve her grammar.

The cashier tells the other people in the building and her mother that she works for Dr. von Leinsdorf. Still, the police arrive one day to search the apartment for the girl. They have been watching and... » Complete Town and Country Lovers Summary