set on the border between south africa and an unnamed country a blade of grass is the taut story of two women one white and one black who struggle to save their farm and ultimately their lives mrit a young woman of british descent recently orphaned and newly wed comes to live with her husband ben on their new farm despite its edenic setting the land explodes in violence and tragedy and mrit finds herself caught in a tug of war between the local afrikaner community and the black workers who live on her farm frightened she turns to the only person who can help her a young woman who is now also alone in the worldher maid tembi as the novel builds to its devastating climax it unfolds a tale both terrifying and hopeful moving beyond its own time and place to become a universal story of the price of freedom