Books: Color Is a Catalyst

THE ZULU AND THE ZEIDE (247 pp.)— Don Jacobson—Little, Brown ($3.75).

Inevitably, the clash of races is one of the great themes of 20th century fiction. Almost too familiar by now, the theme often bogs down in sentiment or sociology. One of the few writers who easily rise above these dangers is South African Novelist Dan Jacobson, and he proves it once again in his first volume of short stories. As in his novels (The Trap, A Dance in the Sun), Jacobson's writing is skilled, hard and sun spare. He uses the tensions between Negroes and whites as he would if they...