Cornelius Molapo, an urban dandy, poet, dancer, and political orator, becomes the leader of the South African National Liberation Movement in this work of fiction that exposes the underside of a fictional revolutionary movement in the last years of apartheid. Ordered to lead a peasant uprising in remote Tabanyane, Cornelius becomes a pawn in a much bigger political game. This reluctant leader disappears, but returns as a dedicated revolutionary who would choose death over defeat. In energetic and crafted language, this story brings elements of a political thriller into a sophisticated human drama.

A young Zulu boy named Dumisani grows up in awe of the legendary figure of Nelson Mandela. He thinks of Mandela not only as a great leader of the oppressed, but also as a great seducer of women, and it is in this aspect that he decides to emulate Mandela. A woman he has been pursuing for a long time yields to his advances the day the Black Pimpernel is captured. But Mandela's imprisonment renders Dumisani impotent for 27 years.