Coovadia’s novel blends fiction with fact in an engrossing portrayal of how we have changed in the last 40 years. By

Tales of the Metric System does. But this is not a proselytising pamphlet. Coovadia does not preach so much as present for our observation the world of politics and its players, each tragically convinced of their correctness.

When power shifts after 1994, the outsiders find themselves on the inside. We are taken to a box at Ellis Park where the rugby World Cup final is being played in 1995. An anti-apartheid activist from London, Farhad, is in power and telling his businessman friend: “There are big contracts at stake, army, navy, atomic power stations. Who would have thought, 10 years ago, that we would be standing here at Ellis Park, in our own private area, and talking about submarines?”

Then there is the figure of Sparks — Nelson Mandela and Mbeki’s spokesman Parks Mankahlana comes immediately to mind — who finds himself in hospital dying of Aids, but not allowed anti-retrovirals because of the president’s belief that they are killers. When the doctor assigned to treat him by the president is questioned by another, he says: “We have our instructions to avoid poisoning him with antiretrovirals. Within those parameters, within those conditions . . . let us try to be responsible physicians.” The phrase “only following orders” comes to mind.

It is the book’s darkest chapter and Coovadia’s commentary is a cold indictment. “When the elections had happened, people anticipated a flood of new investment from overseas, money from the car companies, new technologies, trade routes. Instead it had been the coffin-makers and traditional healers, funeral-parlour masters and graveyard priests, who did a roaring trade.” With its elegant prose and its ruthless determination to lead you to the truth, Tales of the Metric System is about as good a book as you are likely to read on South Africa’s transition. —@hartleyr