“Maru” is set in a remote village in Botswana in the 1960s. The novel is an examination of racial prejudice against the Masarwa – or Bushmen – upon whom the Batswana look down upon. The ‘Bushmen’ or San people are the oldest inhabitants of southern Africa, where they have lived for some 20,000 years. Their home is in the Kalahari Desert. Recently, the have been in the limelight after challenging the government of Botswana over their expulsion from ancestral lands. Their protest is being viewed as a landmark case for Indigenous rights in Africa.