Pickup

A New York Times Notable BookWinner of the Commonwealth Writers'' Prize for AfricaRanks as one of Gordimer''s best novels…It transcends politics and aims at a meaning higher than human striving.---The Philadelphia InquirerWhen Julie Summers''s car breaks down on a street in Cape Town a young Arab mechanic comes to her aid. Their attraction to each other is immediate. Julia the daughter of a powerful businessman is trying to escape a privileged background she despises. Abdu an educated but poor illegal immigrant is desperate to evade deportation. The consequences of this chance meeting are unpredictable and intense as each person''s notions of the other are overturned. Set in the social mix of post-apartheid South Africa and an unnamed Arab country Nadine Gordimer''s The Pickup is a masterpiece of creative empathy...a gripping tale of contemporary anguish and unexpected desire and it also opens the Arab world to unusually nuanced perception (Edward W. Said).