"This contemporary African classic tells the story of seven unforgettable Kenyan women as it traces more than sixty years of turbulent national history. Like their country, this group of old women is divided by ethnicity, language, class, and religion.

But around the charcoal fire at the Refuge, the old-age home they share in Nairobi, they uncover the hidden personal histories that connect them as women: stories of their struggles for self-determination; of conflict, violence, and loss, but also of survival. As a visitor to the Refuge says, "To be eighty years old in Africa is to be tough, particularly for a woman." And these seven women, with no families to care for them, must be tougher still."--BOOK JACKET.