Themba Limba is a family man who is caught between his flourishing career as a teacher and municipal councillor in the township of Sekunjalo, and his overriding sexual interests. Despite his attempts to maintain his status in the community, his actions eventually lead to his downfall.

Themba Limba is a family man who is caught between his flourishing career as a teacher and municipal councilor and his overriding sexual interests. Despite his attempts to maintain his status in the community, his actions eventually lead to his downfall. What follows is an account sometimes tragic, occasionally humorous, and always compelling of Themba's efforts to regain his dignity and pride in the eyes of his family and community. When a Man Cries is an uncompromising and engrossing novel about the challenges of manhood in contemporary South African society. It interrogates the dynamics of township life and the human and socio-economic realities of the most impoverished communities in post-apartheid South Africa.