Empire Settings: A Novel of South Africa

Danny Divin is a young white man in South Africa who enters into an illicit romance with a mixed race schoolgirl, the daughter of a black domestic servant. When social constraints force Danny to end the romance, he travels to America with the hOut of Printes of starting a new life. There he meets Tesseba, a curious and trusting artist who takes him in and marries him to save him from deportation. The two build a life together, but Danny continues to be plagued by a growing sense of loss. Twenty years later, Danny returns to a "new" South Africa in the hOut of Printes of saving a family fortune and finding the girl he has never forgotten.

Schmahmann was born in Durban, South Africa. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the Cornell Law School and has studied in India and Israel and worked in Burma. He practices law in Boston.