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. ( )

I chose to read this for a topic-based book club I run (1001 Books You Should Read Before You Die). I'm glad I did. It was a rare glimpse at a life few of us in the United States see or read about. The story, at its core, is one of Tambu, a young girl who scores one spot in a missionary school with her Uncle (a missionary headmaster) and his family, after her brother dies. By Tambu's family's standards (they are quite poor), her Uncle's family is very wealthy and she quickly befriends her cousin Nyasha, recently returned from England, where she lived for 5 years. Tambu is a bright but very realistic young woman and we learn about both the joys and sorrows and limits of her culture, especially for women. Her sheer tenacity and intelligence get her out of poverty, but there is a cost. Her story is juxtaposed with Nyasha's life, which is "caught between two worlds", i.e., too African for the English and too English for the Africans. It is a sad, but sometimes hopeful story of two cultures clashing in 1960s Rhodesia, where race relations were strained at best (and remain so today per the Interview at the end of the novel). I enjoyed this book mostly for how much I learned about the people and Zimbabwe during that time. However, there is no discernable plot and the novel wanders all over the place. Some characters who are interesting come and go in a few pages. So I think it could have been developed more. But overall, Tambu is a great, strong woman and I liked reading her story even if it was rather disjointed. ( )

Nervous Conditions (1989) by Tsitsi Dangarembga represents Zimbabwe for Around the World for a Good Book. This book is the coming of age story of a girl named Tambu living in the 1960's & 70's under British Colonial rule in Rhodesia. After her brother dies, Tambu is able to go away to a mission school and live with her wealthy, cosmopolitain uncle and his family. This means sharing a room with her cousin Nyasha.

The girls form a friendship and share an outsider status. Nyasha spent many years living in England with her parents and thus lost touch with the African ways. Tambu is drawn to the lifestyle of her cousin's family and the mission and increasingly disgusted with her own family's backward ways.The novel contains a lot of the tropes of the coming-of-age story: rebellion, burgeoning sexuality, shame in one's family, and seeking one's own identity. For much of the book it appears that Tambu is more of a spectator to Nyasha's outlandish ways. Later in the novel the narrative shifts to Tambu's choices and family commitments.

There is also a layer of the novel that subtly shows the effects of colonialism with the castes in society where the more African people live near poverty and the more English live life more abundantly. The most chillng passages are when Tambu describes the white people at the mission as near-deities, a status she seems to accept without question.Another strong element of the novel is the role of women in society. In addition to Nyasha and Tambu there is Tambu's highly-educated yet underemployed aunt, her mother, and other family members each of whom are expected to live according to certain rules set for women.

I didn't find this to be the best-written or most-engaging novel, but it does subtly cover many issues without resorting to didactic means. ( )

A very solid first novel, Nervous Conditions is set in colonial Rhodesia (what is now Zimbabwe) in the late 1960s. It's a fascinating look at Tambu, a young girl who desperately wants an education so that she can lift herself and her family out of poverty, and her British-educated cousin, Nyasha, who rails against the circumscriptions of Shona society; at the impacts of colonisation and cultural hybridisation, of the creation of 'third culture kids.' It was a great, no-nonsense immersion into a culture I know very little about, and in that respect, as a defiantly African-Feminist version of a 'coming of age' novel, I really recommend it. Dangarembga's prose style was what stopped me from truly loving this, however: at times it veered well away from subtlety into the didactic. ( )

This book offers up one of the best coming of age stories I have read in a long time. Set in Rhodesia in the 1960s, a young woman from poverty finds opportunity due to her intellect, but also has to deal with the social ambiguities of being a British colony, as well as the oppressive expectations for women in her culture. No small feat to navigate through this maze of development. The story is poignant, disturbing, and thought-provoking. An excellent read! ( )

Beautiful writing. I became very attached to the main character/narrator. Also very angry at the stupid system the young girls had to go through. I learned a lot from this book.

A useful book for Americans to read, as it sheds light on a piece of the struggles young African women have to endure. Educational in a way history books can't be because you experience events with the characters. ( )

A touching story of a young girl who uses her strength and ambition to pull herself out of a perpetual circle of poverty and despair surrounding her people, Nervous Conditions held my unwavering attention until the last page. Dangarembga forces the reader to struggle along with her characters as they try to find a balance between traditional cultures and values and those being pushed on them by western colonists, with out allowing it to destroy who they are. ( )

Set in the late 1960's in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), this is a classic bildungsroman or coming-of-age novel about a young woman of poor circumstances who wishes to escape the constraints of her rural life. Opportunity is presented to her but it comes with a price. As Tambu negotiates her future she struggles with issues of identity, gender, class, race & culture (to name just a few!). The story is compelling, the characters memorable. 1/08 ( )

I made it about halfway through before giving up. The story of a determined, resourceful girl from a disadvantaged family continuing her education could have been a poignant one, but the writing style did it in. The narrator describes every one of her thoughts and feelings in exacting detail, so the story plods along at a snail's pace. A couple of the peripheral characters interested me, but we learn about them through exposition and description rather than dynamic scenes that demonstrate their personalities. It's rare for me to give up on a book, but I just couldn't get into this one. ( )