Although fictional, this coming-of-age novel accurately reflects a massive crisis of identity among young men in South Africa's ghettoes. For some of them nothing has changed, and Nelson Mandela's dream of a rainbow nation of opportunity is a bitter joke.

Envisioning another kind of life for these kids, this story follows Ky, a young gang member who gets into trouble and is forced to flee his community and the people he knows.

Saved from certain death by a stranger who reads his dreams, Ky is invited to go deep into the forbidding mountains and study with Zimry, a Bushman shaman, who becomes a mentor and helps Ky find his calling.