All the stories in Discovering fire explore the relationship between public event and private consequence in South Africa's tumultuous past. Against backdrops ranging from Sharpeville in the 1960s to the bloody realities of the 1980s and beyond, characters respond to each other in ways that are indelibly marked by their responses to the troubled and often violent world in which they find themselves. This is David Robbins's second collection of short stories. Of his first, The Wall, one critic remarked that it contained "some of the most valuable fiction produced by a South African in recent years". Robbins published the acclaimed travel book, After the Dance, last year. Other outstanding titles by this accomplished author include: The 29th Parallel and Aspects of Africa and his latest title Searching Africa.