Nadine gordimer ghost many stories about the Injustice of apartheid. She was also active in bringing change to political entities of South africa.

Gordimer doesn't have to use the word "apartheid" for us to know exactly what/when she's talking about in "Once Upon a Time." Her story is set in an affluent neighborhood full of selfish people in the late 20th century. Outside the neighborhood are riots by "people of another color" who are not allowed into the husband and wife's neighborhood unless they are "trusted." Those other people eventually do come into the neighborhood as outside events like "police and soldiers and tear-gas and guns...buses were being burned, cars stoned, and schoolchildren shot by the police in those quarters out of sight and hearing of the suburb" and widespread unemployment lead to the uprooting of a population. The husband and wife's inability, or lack of desire, to understand the plight of the Black people in their region and how members of their own white racial group were the ones who created this system of racial separation and concomitant unrest, despair, and deprivation encapsulates the brutal unfairness of apartheid in South Africa.