Compared to Faulkner, Grass, Kafka, and Rushdie, after his acclaimed debut The Powers That Be, Nicol now presents a work of tremendous literary and political resonance. His rise foretold by an oracle, a black messiah in the parched South African veld abandons his plague-ridden village to wander the desert, gathering the poor and disenfranchised--only to incur the wrath of the government.