Safe Houses, by Rose Zwi (Used)

Rose Zwi's 1993 novel follows three interconnected families through the final, violent years of apartheid. Ruth and Lola, involved in anti-apartheid resistance, wrestle with feeling complicit in the very system they oppose, while an unlikely friendship develops between Zalman, an elderly Eastern-European-born resident of a care home, and Mr Sibiya, a Black cleaner whose children must choose between working for change from within the system or joining the armed struggle abroad. The novel asks whether love and hope can survive a political system that destroys guilty and innocent alike.