The Year the Gypsies Came

In Johannesburg in the late 1960s, the Iris family take in house guests from time to time to diffuse the tension in their large but unhappy home. 11-year-old Emily looks forward to these guests as she knows her parents will set their quarrels aside, and, if only for a short time, be like a real family. One spring a family of wanderers - an Australian couple and their two boys, Streak and Otis, who is brain damaged - comes to stay. Emily and Streak form a close friendship and Emily's beloved, gentle older sister Sarah takes Otis in hand. But then tragedy strikes and their lives are changed forever. Enclosing all this is the incredibly close and warm relationship Emily has with the old Zulu gatekeeper, Buza, who tells her Zulu folktales to help her through and make sense of her problems.