A wonderful novel set in former Rhodesia during the ‘60s told from the perspective of the aspirant young Tambudzai, who gets the rare opportunity to acquire an education when her only brother dies. As the telling unfolds, we gain insight into a patriarchal system and the rigorous demands placed on women, particularly Tambu, her mother, her uncle’s educated wife (she has a Master’s Degree obtained in England) and her cousin, Nyasha, who has a difficult time adapting to life in Rhodesia after being exposed, for a few years, to a totally different mindset in London. A worthwhile read. ( )

This is a coming of age book that features two great themes: being black in a segregated society (1960's Zimbabwe), and being a woman.
It is the story of young Tambu, who works on her parents' farm and dreams about going to school, like her older brother who lives with his 'anglicized' uncle at the mission. She gets a chance at it when this brother dies and that her uncle decides that the second child of the family, although 'just a girl', could help lift her family from poverty if only she had the chance to go to school for a few years before getting married.

I found the book interesting at times and frustrating at others: the main character is very passive and uncritical of what happens around her, but the author describes every situation in great details. Sometimes I just couldn't help thinking the author was jumping to third person narration, and then realize that no, Tambu was still in the room and she was the describing what she was seeing.

This said, the 4 main female characters of this book are all very different and interesting, and in the author's own words, they represent different 'models' of African women and their attitude towards men, education, colonization, traditions, etc.

The book becomes metaphorical at times, like the final segment about the cousin becoming anorexic as a performance of 'rejecting' the colonial situation.

Overall, I found the book interesting but somehow a heavy read, in the sense that the author's style can at times become very dense, even if the book is not very long (200 pages). Worth the read but not a novel you pick up for entertainment, in my opinion. ( )

The author was born in 1959, educated in Zimbabwe and England, and returned to Zimbabwe in 1980 with black majority rule. She studied medicine and psychology before turning to writing and filmmaking. The Book of Not: A Sequel to Nervous Conditions was published in 2006. The book's title comes from an introduction to Fritz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth: "The condition of native is a nervous condition."

I remember the struggle for Zimbabwean independence from the apartheid rule of Ian Smith in the 1970s, and in the late 70s, the woman who cared for my baby while I was going to graduate school and teaching was the wife of a Zimbabwean graduate student at Columbia U. The characters in the novel are an extended family of the Shona tribe and speak Shona and English.

The major themes of the book are the displacement of identity under colonialism and the struggle for female autonomy in a patriarchal society. I found it quite an engrossing read and read it in two sittings. This is a moving rites of passage story about two teenage girls living in a time of cataclysmic change. ( )

http://amiralace.blogspot.com/2007/02... ( )

In the 1960's, when present-day Zimbabwe was under British control and known as Rhodesia, Tambudzai, the daughter of a traditional Shona couple living in a rural village, learns that her brother died. Tambudzai is then selected by the head of her family, her uncle Babamukuru, to move to his house and attend the mission school over which he is headmaster. Patriarchal rule and English influence make Tambudzai’s adjustment to her new environment challenging. She learns how to adjust by quietly observing the ways of her free-thinking and rebellious cousin Nyasha.

This is a stirring novel of an extended Shona family and how they live within the constraints of their own culture, but feel how English influence is changing the lives they know. A rich, layered novel of social issues and family disagreements, this story leads to a better understanding of how one culture can subtly try to swallow another. This book is an excellent read for anyone who'd like to know more about an African culture under colonial rule. The writing captures the colorful details of everyday life, the nuances of family relationships, and the feelings of one young girl as she learns about and adjusts to the world which surrounds her. ( )