No Time Like the Present

''A perfect example of what literature can give us that history books cannot.''—Francine Prose, The New York Times Book ReviewA New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Steve and Jabulile, once clandestine lovers under a racist law forbidding sexual relations between black and white, are living in a newly free South Africa. Both were combatants in the struggle against apartheid, and now, he, a university lecturer, and she, a lawyer, are parents of children born in freedom. But as the ideals of this ''better life for all'' are challenged by the realities of the world around them, Steve and Jabulile consider leaving the country they so vehemently fought to free.The subject in No Time Like the Present is contemporary, but Nadine Gordimer's treatment is, as ever, timeless. In the telling of this conflicted couple, she captures the fragmented essence of a nation.