Contemporary author, Nadine Gordimer, writes with compassion about her native land. The Republic Of South Africa is still full of racial tension and struggling to define itself. No Time Like the Present tells the graphic story of Steve and Jabulile, a multi-racial couple, and their daughter Sindiswa, as they are presented with ethical choices. The book has a cast of engaging characters; friends and family, none of whom are living extraordinary lives. The reader is transported among the Zulu tribal life, to the Jewish and Christian white culture, to the refugees from other parts of Africa. No Time Like the Present examines issues of education, immigration, xenophobia, unemployment, homosexuality, religion, justice, politics, corruption and violence in a post-apartheid society.
Gordimer’s complex characters are described in an illustrative language. She is known for her writing style which uses dashes to notate her dialog segments. However, in this book Gordimer's prose could be perceived as dense, as sentences are often a paragraph long and the reader is tongue tripped over the syntax making it rather difficult to read at times.
Gordimer, an established and respected author, is a winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1991.