Roughly 80% of South Africa’s white population supported the segregationist policy of apartheid, a cornerstone of the country’s minority-rule regime, while Gordimer was writing her book. The remaining 20% opposed it to various degrees: Some took bold political action such as forming opposition parties like the Progressive Political Party. Others, though they disagreed with apartheid’s racist, exploitative policies, didn’t let their progressivism interfere with their material comforts or professional success. Gordimer, a fiercely committed anti-apartheid activist, felt particular scorn for such “weak-tea liberals,” who she felt wanted it both ways: priding themselves on their progressive, egalitarian opinions while giving up none of the financial and social advantages of belonging to the white ruling class. In the hypothetical scenarios of July’s People, which follow the violent overthrow of the white regime, Gordimer’s novel forces two representatives of this liberal but hypocritical subset (Bam and Maureen Smales) to delve into their past behaviors under apartheid—along with their true feelings about themselves, each other, and the subject people they always claimed to support.

Born to white privilege, Bam and Maureen rarely questioned the liberal probity of their sentiments and actions. Bam, a descendent of the original Dutch colonizers of the region, built a lucrative career as an internationally known architect, designing buildings for the government and for important figures in the white-dominated financial sector, such as a bank accountant, who in gratitude passed along privileged information to Bam about a banking crisis.