Second novels are notoriously difficult – particularly in the wake of a debut which makes a noise in the literary world.

Luckily, I had all but finished this novel when The Innocence of Roast Chicken, emerged, into a clamour of both acclaim and controversy. I’m grateful for that mercy, at least. It meant I wasn’t paralysed by self-consciousness and doubt in its writing. Nonetheless, this book, which appeared a year after, always felt like the younger child in thrall to its more popular sibling.

That’s not to say it didn’t do well in its own quiet way. Yes, it sold creditably and was well received. As Allan Massie wrote in The Scotsman (UK): ‘Her writing has the tang of authenticity … The result is as engrossing as it is impressive’, and the Daily Telegraph (UK) added: ‘A wise and substantial literary novel.’

From the city in which it was set, it received this acknowledgment: ‘It is perhaps most accurately through novels that we gain a sure perspective of what our past was about . . . Touching the Lighthouse forms an important part of the literary history of South Africa (Cape Times).

Yet, somehow, it has always remained in the shadow of Innocence. At the time it appeared, Innocence was not only still selling well, but was at the height of its controversial prominence. Touching the Lighthouse slipped in more modestly, with less fanfare.

I believe it deserves its own space in the world of books. It has something specific – and very different – to say. It captures a time and place, and immerses the reader in a particular sub-culture, within a changing South Africa.

Innocence tells the ‘big’ story – it underlines the evil that apartheid brought down on society, the damage it wrought in people’s lives. This book is both more complicated, and more subtle. It makes a real attempt to capture what those difficult years, during and in the immediate aftermath of apartheid, were really like for ordinary people. And, in the years since it appeared, countless readers have expressed what that meant to them, to read an account, not of heroes, but of average people, trying to live ordinary lives in an extraordinary society.

This novel is about people like you: flawed, complicated characters trying to navigate a time and place that made that difficult. Like Innocence, it is a coming-of-age novel. It captures the concerns of young people, disaffected by an immoral system, yet unsure of their role in helping bring it to an end.

It is the story of young people becoming adults, doing what young people do, being transgressive and reckless, meddling where wiser heads might not. But, because of their context, the consequences are so much greater than in any normal society.

This book is like a time machine. It will spirit you back into a society in flux. Where most people simply muddle through, trying to live their lives as best they can, the context of these characters made that impossible.

Innocence made the big statement and, particularly internationally, had the greater impact. I can understand that. People find comfort in large brush strokes; they prefer to confront difficult issues in blacks and whites, which are easier to understand and make sense of.

It’s less comfortable to be confronted by greys, where right and wrong are difficult to pin down; where, in trying to live their lives, young people can make themselves complicit.

That’s where this book lies, in the messy complexities of humanity. In the subtleties beyond the great rights and wrongs. It’s about people like you and me, trying to do the right thing, yet not always succeeding.

I believe this novel deserves to retain its place in the canon of post-apartheid fiction. I don’t think any other book has attempted to confront the complexities of this time in quite the same way.

And, as my second novel, it holds its place in my list of publications. It shows where I came from, and how I progressed as a writer through the books I would subsequently write.