Zoe Wicomb, an author with both South African and Scottish ancestry, lives and works in Scotland, something that she shares with the protagonist of this novel, Marcia Murray. Murray is a professor in Glasgow who returns to her homeland of South Africa when her brother asks her to come and take his son back to Scotland. The novel is ostensibly about a woman who is going home, but because she has been away for so long, it doesn't really feel like her home anymore, and she fits in far better in her adopted homeland than in the land of her birth.
October was Wicomb's first novel after winning the Windham-Campell Literature Prize. Her writing has always centered around her South African heritage; her first book was a collection of short stories, You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town, that was semi-autobiographical, set during the era of apartheid and centering around a young woman who lives in a colored community within a predominantly white Afrikaans neighborhood. This collection introduced Wicomb's key themes that appear throughout her novels and stories. She examines the role of women in para-military movements, apartheid, and the journey towards finding one's place in the world even if it is with a group of people to whom we appear to be fundamentally different.
Wicombe chooses non-profit publishers for her work, October being no exception to the rule. She also leans towards independent feminist presses. In 2016 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in literature from the University of Cape Town.
