The pacing and perspective of Bosman’s tales...are unlike anything else in English...The closest comparison may be Robert Frost poems or Bob Dylan songs.

Bosman is disrespectful, subversive and lethal on the silly, savage ways of old South Africa. I’ve no doubt he would have been just as wicked about the new South Africa.

He knows what to tell us and when, and most importantly he knows what not to tell us…A subtle and simple treatment of deep reflections…A classic set of stories, deserving of world attention to match the attention it already receives in Bosman’s home country.

In the wild-dog reserves, up where South Africa meets the Botswana border, every guest-house room has a leather-bound copy of short stories by the teacher-killer-writer, Herman Charles Bosman.

The stories in Mafeking Road move between comedy and tragedy, often several times within the same story, and they detail loves lost, or lovers lost, or tragicomic encounters with the British, or family dramas, but each of the stories is masterfully executed and wonderfully written, and achieves its effects almost magically.