It all began with the anger of Laduma, the Thunder God, and the birth of a special child with strange, flickering eyes. This is the tale of a rural family – Mabena, Mantombi and their grandson Duma – who are exiled from the ancestral home and thrown into the turmoil of township life. They take Duma to Boekenhout, on the outskirts of a city, where Mabena, the grandfather, becomes a bridge between the past and the present, the urban and the rural.

The harder Mabena tries to keep the values of the past alive, the more intrigued and bedazzled Duma becomes by urban life and jazz music. The introduction of the apartheid homelands policies forces the family to return to their old village, where Duma is to be initiated into manhood. We Shall Not Weep is a beautifully written lyrical novel about a traditional African community in change, swayed by the forces of modernity and political change.