"As Imogen Zula Nyoni, aka Genie, lies in a coma at Mater Dei Hospital, her family and friends struggle to come to terms with her impending death. This is the story of Genie, who has gifts that transcend time and space. With the lightest of touches, and with an overlay of magical-realist beauty, this novel sketches, through the lives of a few families and the fate of a single patch of ground, decades of national history (a country in Southern Africa that is never named) - from colonial occupation through the freedom struggle, to the devastation wrought by the sojas, the HIV virus, and The Man Himself. At turns mysterious and magical, but always honest, The Theory of Flight explores the many ways we lose those we love before they die. When it was published in South Africa, the novel was awarded the Barry Ronge Fiction Prize"-- Provided by publisher.