The context is Cape Town, South Africa of the 1930s as seen through the pre-teen eyes of the author, Yousuf 'Joe' Rassool when 'life was one interminable summer'. This family history covers the era of Gandhi in South Africa through the early Anti-Apartheid struggle. Rassool recalls characters of the time with a crystal clarity that is both the blessing and curse of those who went into exile. He brings to life No. 7 Buitencingle Street, the unoccupied and shuttered ancestral family home of the Gools that is opened to their relatives, the Rassools, as temporary accommodation. The house, now run...