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Rose Zwi’s stories embrace people from different countries and cultures drawn together by a common humanity. Her characters range from a political activist who is house-arrested, to the child of immigrant parents caught between two cultures; from a city-educated woman returning to the arid homeland of her tribal grandfather, to a Rabbi and his wife in an East European shtetl; from a solitary dingo in a small Australian town, pursued to its inevitable end to a farmer obsessed with returning his land to its natural state. Rose Zwi enchants the reader in her struggle to arrive at the truth of a situation. With a delicate but ironic touch, leavened with gentle humour, the award-winning author of Another Year in Africa, Safe Houses and Last Walk in Naryshkin Park opens our eyes to the world around us and captures our hearts.

The title comes from Horace's Satires:
"Furthermore, that I may not run over this matter with a laugh in the manner of those who rattle off jokes – and yet what is to prevent one from telling the truth with laughter, as coaxing teachers sometimes give their pupils cookies to make them willing to learn their ABCs."