The vast majority of the book focuses on the transformation of the members of the Ali family and the disintegration of the family itself. Dangor uses the third person perspective to follow the family members through their different lives and thoughts. With this perspective, the reader is able to see the inner thoughts of all the main characters as well as see the overall picture of their actions.
Bitter Fruit tells the story of Silas and Lydia Ali, both of mixed race ancestry, and their son Mikey, a promising university student in post-apartheid South Africa. Silas was an ANC activist and now a lawyer working with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He unexpectedly encounters Francois du Boise, a white policeman who had raped Lydia 20 years earlier while Silas was being beaten in the back of a police van. Even though he doesn't confront du Boise, the encounter reopens old wounds and creates new ones as Mikey learns of his real heritage. Even in the post-apartheid world they longed for, they find their happiness hard to achieve when the past never really goes away.
Dangor’s novel portrayal of Silas, Lydia and Mikey reveal their journey of self discovery which ultimately leads them onto a path of change and healing. This is then mirrored by the process of the TRC which shares the goal of reaching ultimate healing and change. Dangor explores the harsh realities of a transitional post-apartheid South Africa through the story of a mixed-race family which, despite seemingly embodying the hopes of the new nation, is inescapably shackled to the past.
The sense of an on-going betrayal of people's lives - in the past and into the future - is the wounded territory of Achmat Dangor's novel. These characters are coping with the effects of South Africa's past and present turmoil and the search for some kind of limbo or twilight zone where all unresolved conflicts might find resolution.
The novel's sense of painful disclosure is symbolised in the dark, red seeds of a split pomegranate spilling on to the cover image. Seed is a metaphor that haunts the Ali family. Mikey, the only son - a child of the "new South Africa" – discovered he was born of rape by a white policeman. A seed of contempt germinates in Mikey as he reflects on the failings of his parents' generation: "'The struggle' sowed the seeds of bright hopes and burning ideals, but look at what they are harvesting: ordinariness."
Through these key characters the reader is given insight into their lives as well as insight into the process of the TRC with a ring-side seat for witnessing the political, cultural and religious conflicts that swept the nation at the time.
