You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
This book is an autobiographical account by Athanasio Dzadagu, a former Zimbabwean Catholic priest, outlining and reflecting on the experiences he had in Britain during the period from 1996-2014. While indeed the book is largely about the author’s own experiences as an immigrant, an African and a Zimbabwean, in many ways it is also a reflection on the experiences of Zimbabweans in Britain. These include the challenge of being far away from home, the initial shock of finding their good English not understood, experiences while undertaking further studies, the challenge of an environment characterised by persistent negative headlines about Zimbabwe and its president, Robert Mugabe and the challenge of British social and cultural values. The book also opens the reader’s eyes to how, having come to Britain hoping to return to Zimbabwe as a high-flying academic, to teach in the Major Seminary or any one of Zimbabwe’s universities, Fr Dzadagu instead ended up leaving priesthood.
In this book, I try to explore why one section of the Catholic Community connected with the late Archbishop Chakaipa was overtaken by great remorse when he died, while another went into jubilation. This leads me into the examination of what kind of person Archbishop Chakaipa was. I do this in the context of his family background and his priestly and Episcopal ministries. He was of the Unendoro clan, with a history tracing back to Karanga roots. In his Seminary years, he wrote five Shona novels which became very influential in developing Shona literacy. He earned enduring respect across the entire Zimbabwean nation for this achievement. Within Church circles Archbishop Chakaipas name is synon...
Dambudzo Marechera burst onto the English literary scene with a bang in 1978 with this vivid roar of a book exploring township life in pre-independence Zimbabwe. Irreverent and uncompromising, Dambudzo Marechera rejected what he saw as the narrow stereotypes of African literature, and was a fearless critic of his country. The narrator expresses his desperate alienation - from his family, from his student friends, from township life and from Zimbabwe itself. This novella, and the other short stories here, portray an explosive world that flashes with both violence and humour.
The Black Inside develops the preoccupations of his award-winning House of Hunger by exploring, in his devastatingly honest way, the predicaments of exile and the black identity, and examining the realities of living under the threat of the Bomb."--BOOK JACKET.
A collection of Marechera's last writings which evoke city life and its many disparate facets - from the glittering fashion shops to the tramps in back alleys. What at first sight often seems peaceful and harmless, is suddenly disrupted by flashes of madness for, in Marechera's universe, everyday life is always haunted by the nightmare of Zimbabwe's past.
In this dark and deeply radical novel, Dambudzo Marechera offers a visceral account of a photojournalist's entanglement with a terrorist organisation. In an unnamed totalitarian state, the members of Black Sunlight – a group of violent anarchists – are the only ones fighting for change and justice. As their actions push the country further towards chaos, journalist Christian records it all through the lens of his camera. Christian's life so far has been one of immense struggle and alienation. So when he becomes tangled in the Black Sunlight uprising, he is determined to remain a bystander and nothing more; to capture their actions without praise or condemnation. In evocative flashes of sex, violence, war, and myth, Christian's story explodes in a labyrinthine plot, told through a chaotic stream-of-consciousness that mirrors the nation's crumbling climate. Black Sunlight is a piercing insight into the darkness of the human psyche and a raw examination of a nation in battle against itself – where everything political turns deeply personal. 'Complex, challenging – and uniquely potent.' Guardian 'A writer in constant quest for his real self.' Wole Soyinka.
Introducing the perspective of 'writing madness' into African literature means seeing that literature from a different angle, through the lenses of writers who have ruffled up the surface of realist representation and have explored issues and styles that represent a trespassing of borders, introducing an element of risk and instability. This study follows the transformation from colonial narratives projecting settlers' horror of the 'heart of darkness' onto the African body and mind, to African writers' interaction with these narratives and their own projections of what constitutes madness in a colonial and postcolonial world, and an analysis of how writing by women displays the gendered violence of the process of mental colonisation. FLORA VEIT-WILD is Professor in the African Studies Dept at the Humboldt University, Berlin. North America: Tsehai/African Academic; South Africa: Jacana; Zimbabwe: Weaver Press
This text aims to unravel the tangled web of the conflict by addressing questions including: why did Nigeria intervene in Liberia and remain committed throughout the seven-year civil war?; and to what extent was ECOMOG's intervention shaped by Nigeria's hegemonic aspirations.
Since the monumental architecture of the Zimbabwe Plateau first became known to Westerners in the 16th century, speculation about the people that created it has been continuous and inventive. Tales of strongholds in the interior were taken home by the first Portuguese chroniclers of the Swahili coast, and their narratives became part of the geographic lore of the 17th and 18th centuries. In the mid-19th century, the lore was spun into fantastic and mysterious yarns about long-lost riches that lured adventurers and traders. Pikirayi (history, U. of Zimbabwe) aims to set the record straight by examining the growth of precolonial states on the plateau and adjacent regions, with a focus on the their historical and cultural development during the second millennium AD. c. Book News Inc.