July's People

July’s People, a 1981 dystopian novel by South African author Nadine Gordimer, imagines the aftermath of a bloody uprising that topples South Africa’s notorious, white-ruled apartheid regime. Her novel, which follows a white family’s desperate flight from Johannesburg, traces the complex interdependencies of white and Black South Africans, revealing the insidiousness of the regime’s racial disparities and mindsets, even among liberal, well-meaning white people. Through the lens of this hypothetical future, Gordimer’s novel explores racial hierarchy, Black liberation, the hypocrisy of liberal South Africans, adaptability in turbulent times, and the fragility of relationships under pressure.

The end of apartheid in 1990 was more measured and peaceful than the events of July’s People, but Gordimer’s novel has less to do with political prognostication than with the torturous and still endemic legacies of the past. Her nuanced, almost microscopic view of South African life seeks to expose the intricate fault lines in an oppressive society under extraordinary pressures. By focusing on individual lives and intimate details rather than battles, speeches, or statecraft, Gordimer anatomizes the political via the deeply personal.

July’s People won the Central News Agency Literary Award in 1981 and is on many lists of significant and notable books, including The Guardian’s 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read. In 1991, Gordimer received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Her other works include novels such as Burger’s Daughter and The Conservationist and short stories such as “The Moment Before the Gun Went Off” and “The Ultimate Safari.”

This guide refers to the 1982 Penguin Books paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide discuss racism and apartheid.

Plot Summary

Sometime in the early 1980s, the Black population of South Africa attacks the minority white government through strikes, marches, and ultimately a bloody revolution that devastates the white districts’ major cities. Maureen and Bamford “Bam” Smales, a privileged white couple who live in Johannesburg, flee the city in a bakkie (pickup truck) with their three children and July, their longtime Black house servant.

Avoiding the roads, which Black insurgents are patrolling, July guides the bakkie on foot through fields and creek beds to the remote rural settlement where his extended family lives. Giving the Smaleses his mother’s hut to hide in, July ensures that they receive food and other necessities, though the settlement has barely enough to feed itself. Initially, Bam and Maureen are grateful, but when July takes the bakkie on a supply run to a distant store without their permission, they begin to chafe at the role reversal that has left them completely dependent on their former servant. When July insists on keeping the bakkie’s keys, since the Smaleses can’t use the vehicle without being seen, they suspect that he plans to steal the bakkie for himself.

The Smaleses, though members of South Africa’s white elite, have long prided themselves on their liberal politics and their vocal opposition to the government’s racist apartheid policies. Now, forced into a subservient role and fully dependent on Black charity, they find themselves questioning their benevolent self-image, as well as their former servant’s faithfulness and honesty. The Smaleses brought a radio, but the sporadic transmissions they pick up offer only sparse (and questionable) news about the civil war’s progress, leaving them increasingly nervous about their future. Moreover, the couple’s relationship deteriorates: Accustomed to the clearly defined roles of their upscale suburban marriage, they find themselves drifting apart amid the squalor and aimlessness of their new existence as fugitives.

In addition, Maureen unsuccessfully tries to befriend the local women or even prove her usefulness to them in the fields. The complexity and precariousness of their situation become even clearer when the local chief, who has always been loyal to the white government, asks them to help him fight the Black insurgents if they encroach on his territory. Shortly thereafter, the Smaleses lose their last vestige of power when an unknown person steals their shotgun. This theft precipitates a climactic quarrel between Maureen and July, ending any possibility of friendship between them. Shaken to the core, Maureen frantically abandons July’s village and her own family, fleeing toward a descending helicopter that offers ambiguous deliverance either back to white civilization or to a violent death.