The White Kudu is the story of a legend which holds Abelshoop, a town in the Northern Cape of South Africa in its thrall. When Joshua Hunter, a young English geologist arrives there in the late 1990s, he is immediately drawn, against his modern scientific convictions, into the compelling myth of a kudu yearling's impossible love for a star maiden. The native inhabitants welcome him as the prophesied stranger who heralds the return of the white kudu, bringing an end to drought and hardship. The white farmers, on the other hand, see him as a threat, especially as his predecessor wreaked havoc in the community with a scandalous and tragic affair. When his promising project is held up by the discovery of an ancient burial site, the situation is further complicated by the arrival of that predecessor's daughter, Sharon Shackleton, an archeologist.