In the village of Motabeng, Botswana - the place of sand - Elizabeth and her son have made their new home, far away from their old life in South Africa. But the past cannot be conveniently left behind at the border. Even though she may be free to reinvent herself in this new country, Elizabeth's mixed racial heritage and urban ways mark her as an outsider. A mind-bending novel that takes the reader in and out of sanity, this semi-autobiographical work tracks Elizabeth's struggle to emerge from the oppressive social situation in which she finds herself and from the nightmares and hallucinations that torment her.

The poverty-striken village of Golema Mmidi, in the heart of rural Botswana, is a haven to the exiles gathered there. When a political refugee from South Africa joins forces with an English agricultural expert, the time-honoured subsistence farming is challenged.