1. The book is written in five voices --- Danny, Santi, Helga, Bridget and Baptie. Is there one narrator whose story you find more compelling than another?

2. Empire Settings gives readers a very personal view of apartheid. How does this relate to your concept of it? How does this relate to class distinctions that exist today?

3. Baptie takes care of the family. Her role with the children is to give them the gestures of intimacy that are often lacking from their mother, but she also plays this role with Helga. "I looked at her carefully, this white lady whose children I had helped bring up, whose husband I had known so well, ironed his shirts, cooked his meals, in some ways he was like my own husband, whose death I had mourned as if my own husband had died, and I felt for her the same things I felt for myself, that the ship had come away from the pier, that it had no journey it wanted to go on, but that also there was nothing left to hold it in place." (Pg 184) Discuss Baptie's role in holding the family together.

4. Helga is a strong independent woman. She returns to school as soon as her children are old enough to be left; she send her daughter away. How does her strength impact the family dynamic? If her children received more attention from her, how would their adult lives be different?

5. Discuss the relationship between Danny and Tesseba. On the day they meet, Tesseba suggests that she and Danny marry so he can get a green card. Is this swift accommodation typical of what Tesseba brings to their marriage?

6. At one point Tesseba says, "You're used to me....And you like me. You really do, I know. But I don't know if this is the kind of love that will satisfy me as I become a little old lady." She goes on to say, "Perhaps it's time for you to resume your real life, the one I seem inadvertently to have interrupted." (Pg 268) Do you think she always knew there was someone else?

7. Is Santi more than Danny's true love? Is she a symbol for him of something else? What is the attraction between them? Do you think Danny and Santi's early relationship would have evolved differently if they had first met in today's post-apartheid South Africa?

8. Why did Danny never look for Santi when he was free to do so? When Santi mentions this it seems like a thought that never occurred to him. What do you think she means when she says, "When someone walks away from his heart he has to walk back to it himself. Someone else cannot come running to bring it." (Page 315)

9. Danny and Bridget feel that they must leave South Africa in order to be free. Santi never feels that way, and cannot imagine living anywhere else. Discuss these contrasting thoughts on the country.

10. What will your lasting impression of the book be?