Emergency Continued takes as its starting point the tense relationship between older and younger generations of South African blacks in their decades long struggle against racism. A father's search for his runaway son carries the older man on a journey through the confusion and violence that marked the closing years of apartheid.

Richard Rive is one of South Africa's most important black writers, giving a nuanced and humane view of family tensions in the face of oppression. Tragically his homophobic murder just after he completed this work meant that he did not live to see his country recover from racial strife to take its place as today's Rainbow Nation.

Writer Es'kia Mphahlele on Richard Rive: "He had more to give us. But we are profoundly grateful for the legacy Richard has left us: the treasures of his prodigious imagination, of his scholarship and the shining memory of his ample presence as a teacher in our midst."