The hero of the book, Godknows (an unusual but fairly common name in Zimbabwe) Kuzvida, is a young black African in Southern Rhodesia (Rhodesia since 1965). Like many other young blacks, he finds that his educational prospects after 'ordinary' levels are bleak. By chance, he gets the opportunity to go to the United Kingdom to further his education fully expecting to come back to a still racially segregated Rhodesia and get himself a job. This starts him on an adventure of discovery as he, for the first time, realises that the rest of the world is different from what he had always considered...