Tsitsi DangarembgaReviews

There's something really frustrating about boarding school stories juxtaposed with real drama happening in the world outside. I still think this is a very interesting mind capable of provoking thought and strong feelings, just maybe not my favorite volume. I guess frustration is a reaction? The loss of self is pretty honest and brutal and unflinching. Structurally this is a bit of a weak middle book, seemingly, we really jump abruptly, but there's a lot of good in it. So painful to watch how the denial of a person can lead to the absenting of a person.

This was a book club selection. The novel is about a young girl in 1960s Rodesia/Zimbabwe struggling to lift herself out of poverty and subsistence living by seeking an education. While this starts out like so many other "impoverished-girl-seeks-education" novels do, it is important to remember this was published in 1988, so it's really the template for those other novels that followed. It is also a bit deeper than some in that it goes beyond the tale of one girl to explore themes like the toxicity of extreme patriarchal cultures and the damaging psychological effects of colonization.

The characters were interesting, varied, and well-drawn. I did not care for the ending. It seemed rushed and went somewhere I wasn't expecting The story had not ben built up in a way that prepared the reader to accept the conclusion. This is part 1 of a trilogy the author penned over 3 decades. I may read the others.

I was not sorry when my brother died. Nor am I apologising for my callousness, as you may define it, my lack of feeling.

Thus begins this coming of age novel of Tambu, a young Zimbabwean girl straddling the divides between men and women, white and black, uneducated and educated, rural and urban, European and African. From the first sentences, Tambu is presented as a strong person relating her story to an other that may not understand her. She makes no excuses and, although she is sharing her experiences, she does not feel a need to justify herself or her decisions. Her voice is quite unique.

Even as children, Tambu's older brother had assumed the role of a traditional, conservative male, feeling an innate superiority to his female siblings. This arrogance was reinforced when their Western-educated uncle chooses him to be educated at the missionary school where he is the headmaster. Tambu chafes at her brother's good fortune, for she is equally intelligent and ambitious. It is only after her brother dies, that her uncle takes her in to be educated.

Life in her uncle's house is revelatory. Indoor plumbing, kitchen appliances, and other accoutrements of a wealthy, Western-influenced home impress Tambu. She doesn't at first understand that her well-educated aunt is as entrapped by her womanhood as her poverty-stricken mother, or the reasons for her cousin Nyasha's rebellion. Slowly Tambu must grapple with the grey choices of escape from poverty by assimilating or remaining true to her village roots at the cost of her ambitions.

[Nervous Conditions] is the first in a trilogy of novels about Tambu. Although this first novel deals with issues of feminism and colonialism, it comes to no conclusions. In fact, that is part of what Tambu learns in this book: that the world is not clear-cut and that ambiguity clouds our choices. Although not as strongly written as [A Girl is a Body of Water] or [Woman at Point Zero], I enjoyed being immersed in Tambu's world and will look for the next book in the trilogy.½

Yes.

The tensions arising between traditional ways of life and opportunities that European interventions offer to native Africans willing to accept them reside at the heart of Tsitsi Dangarembga’s incisive and poignant novel, Nervous Conditions. In 1960s Rhodesia (soon to become independent Zimbabwe), Tambudzai (Tambu) Sigauke lives with her parents and siblings on the family homestead, in a rural village 20 miles from the town of Umtali. The homestead is squalid and life is hard, facts she can accept because it is all she knows. But Tambu is smart. Limited time at the local school has demonstrated that she possesses a quick and searching intelligence. She yearns to expand her horizons. What’s holding her back (other than her family’s poverty) is her gender. As a girl, her route through life is set in stone: inevitably she’ll become someone’s wife and have children. But opportunity for a different kind of life does exist: her brother Nhamo is attending the residential mission school in Umtali, where his fees are being covered by their well-off British-educated uncle Babamukuru. The family expects that once Nhamo’s education is complete, he will find gainful employment and provide them with economic security. Back on the homestead Tambu is consumed with envy. Taken out of school to help on the farm because of Nhamo’s absence, she has no choice but to accept her fate. But when Nhamo dies suddenly, the tragedy forces a decision on the grieving Sigauke family, and despite her mother’s objections Tambu takes her brother’s place at the mission school. Tambu, who cannot afford to be sentimental, can hardly believe her luck. Over the next two years, in an atmosphere where the pursuit of excellence is encouraged, she rises to the top of her class, exceeding her own and her uncle’s expectations. But Tambu discovers that success in the English-speaking white man’s world does not come without a cost. As her academic triumphs push her further and further from her family, her language, and the world she came from, she’s left feeling that she’s betrayed everyone and wondering what she’s gotten herself into. Dangarembga’s semi-autobiographical fiction, first published in 1988, has been followed by two sequels, The Book of Not (2006), and This Mournable Body (shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2020) which bring Tambu’s story into the present day. Tambu Sigauke, an exceptionally self-aware protagonist, knows her own mind and is unapologetic when it comes to pursuing her hopes and dreams. But by the novel’s end she is deeply conflicted, immersed in a goal-oriented European lifestyle, culturally unmoored, ashamed of her humble origins and suffering guilt because of this shame. Despite her successes she is blindsided when the realization hits her that, as a black African living in the white man’s world, she has no idea where she belongs. Written with candour and wrenching honesty, Nervous Conditions provides a powerful commentary on colonialism’s painful legacy from an insider’s perspective and leaves an indelible impression on the reader.

This book has so much unrealized potential, but unfortunately falls way short of what I expect in a good novel. The themes are interesting. Tambu was very successful academically in her youth through hard work, but in the real world, she seems unable to grab a foothold on the ladder of success. She is wildly jealous of those who have been able to amass anything approaching material success. In Zimbabwe, the poverty, the lack of respect for women, the corruption, the unenforceable property rights all make it hard for a woman to make her way in the world, and all of this is elucidated during the course of the story.

Unfortunately, it is told in a way that is so boring and unnecessarily obtuse. I did not read the two prior books in the trilogy, and I do think that might have made a big difference because perhaps I would have had passing familiarity with the characters beyond the protagonist. But since I didn’t, they all just seemed like a stream of names. Some of them had multiple names and were referred to differently from time to time. Others were referred to as her mother’s uncle’s sister’s son (okay, not really, but that represents how confusing it all was in terms of who was related to whom and how they were interrelated). If I have to spend this much time just figuring out what is going on, it is very, very hard to get lost in the storytelling.

Many people will dislike the fact that the book is written in the second person POV, but I actually liked that element and thought it was well done. It’s almost like we were inside Tambu’s mind as she scolds herself for her many failures. In addition, there were actually some descriptive passages that were beautifully written, but sadly there weren’t many of them. I wanted to see more of that author and less of the one struggling to move her character to the finish line.

Bottom line, this book didn’t get interesting until the last 20% when I finally understood where the author was going and why. The first 80% is such a slog that honestly in no way was the journey made worthwhile by the payoff.

Writing quality: 3/5
Originality: 4/5
Character development: 2/4
Plot development: 1/4
Overall enjoyment: 0/2
Total: 10/20

Imagine a society where the only way a woman will be able to get an education is if her older brother, who was going to school himself, died, and since she’s the oldest of the family, now she has to go to school in his place.

For author Tsitsi Dangarembga, this wasn’t too far from the truth. In fact, she wrote a semi-autographical novel about it, called Nervous Conditions, about the plight of girls who want an education living in Zimbabwe (or what was then called Rhodesia). The novel follows Tambu, who’s older brother dies of ‘becoming Anglicized’, but in an effort to have at least one member of the family educated at the Catholic school their uncle manages, Tambu is sent to school to take over her brother’s position as eldest of the family. She does this knowing her mother hates it, knowing her father wants her to do it, and knowing that she will never be as close as she used to be to her culture.

The main characters of the novel, Tambu and her cousin Nyasha, have an incredibly dynamic relationship, being incredibly different but able to support each other positively whenever the other needs. Unfortunately, Nyasha does not fare well, becoming, towards the end, a product of the pressure to be perfect, and a part of a society she wants nothing to do with. While a smart girl, Nyasha is a victim of the extreme patriarchy of her father’s reign at the school, and a black woman in a colonized society that views them as nothing more than the natives of the land.

Tambu, on the other hand, excels, meeting her own obstacles of self-identity, both as a girl who spent the majority of her life up to now living in a homestead learning to become the perfect wife, and as a black woman being educated in a white man’s colony. She triumphs over her obstacles, but one can only assume how much she had to pay for that to be said in the first place.

Nervous Conditions is a brilliant novel, written by an author who knows the struggle, and presented to a society who will never understand the difficulty of acquiring an education. My honest recommendation is 4/5; everyone should read this book, especially those interested in history.

Luckily for you, if you’re an English student at the University of Malta, the chances are you’ll have to read this in your second year!

This novel has a fantastic opening that immediately captured my interest:
“I was not sorry when my brother died. Nor am I apologising for my callousness, as you may define it, my lack of feeling…I shall not apologise but begin by recalling the facts as I remember them that led up to my brother’s death, the events that put me in a position to write this account. For though the event of my brother’s passing and the events of my story cannot be separated, my story is not after all about death, but about my escape.”

Set in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) in the 1960s-1970s, protagonist Tambu looks back on her life. As a teen, she yearned for education, but “the needs and sensibilities of the women in my family were not considered a priority, or even legitimate.” Through a confluence of circumstances, she gets the chance to attend a Protestant mission school. She is beholden to Babamukuru, her uncle and the head of the school. She wants to stand up for herself but finds it difficult. Her friend, Nyasha, daughter of Babamukuru, who has studied in England, has much less trouble rebelling against traditions.

“You had to admit that Nyasha had no tact. You had to admit she was altogether too volatile and strong-willed. You couldn’t ignore the fact that she had no respect for Babamukuru when she ought to have had lots of it. But what I didn’t like was the way all the conflicts came back to this question of femaleness. Femaleness as opposed and inferior to maleness.”

This story examines post-colonialism, race, class, gender, education, traditions, and the patriarchal society. It is a lot to pack into a 250-page novel, but these factors are all integrated beautifully into the storyline. The ending sets up the next book in this trilogy.

I liked the way the author had the protagonist be calm about people who were aggressive and assertive with her, and try to understand their point of view and the reason is they were acting the way they were. Which is kind of the opposite of the way I am, but I'm trying to change this.

Tambudzai is a young woman from a village in Zimbabwe. She has a brother named Nhamo who, of course, gets all of the privilege of the family. For example, he gets to go to the missionary School, while Tambudzai stays home and works in the family crops and takes care of her baby sisters, cooks and cleans the house.
The book starts out with her claiming "I am not sad that my brother died." I didn't have to be shocked at this statement, because I totally understand where she's coming from, having had an older brother and a younger brother who got all of the privilege in the family. moreover they could never do any wrong. Of course Timbudzai had it so much worse, being from zimbabwe, whereas I was from missouri.
"During the April and August holidays Nhamo refused to come home, saying it was necessary to read his books ceaselessly in order to pass his examinations at the end of each year. This was a good argument. It enabled him to avoid the uncomfortable tasks of pulling down and stocking the maize and stripping the cobs of their leaves....
...The beginning of the crop year was a busy time. My uncle insisted that Nhamo be home for it on the grounds that there were no examinations pending to justify his staying at the mission. Thus Nhamo was forced once a year to return to his squalid homestead, where he washed in cold water in an enamel basin or a flowing river, not in a bathtub with taps gushing hot water and cold; where he ate Sadza regularly with his fingers and meat hardly at all, never with a knife and fork; where there was no light beyond the flickering yellow of candles and homemade paraffin lamps to enable him to escape into his books when the rest of us had gone to bed."

Tumble dry is unable to continue going to grammar school, because the family can't afford her books. She decides to raise money by growing her own crop of corn, and her grandmother's old vegetable garden patch. She tends her plot carefully and tenderly, watching the cobs as they ripen. But before she can pluck them to sell them, they disappear. She finds out that her brother is stealing them and giving them out after school. She tells the headmaster, so he helps her by taking her into town to sell her corn. An old white lady and her husband are approaching, and Mr Matimba says
" ...'madam, we are selling green mealies, very soft, very fresh, very sweet.'
Smiling brightly I held two cobs out while my stomach rolled itself into tight, nervous knots. I did not like the way they looked, with their skin hanging in papery folds from their bones, malignant-looking brown spots on their hands, a musty, dusty, sweetish odor clinging around the woman like a haze. making sure not to wrinkle my nose, because these were the people who had the money that I needed to go back to school, I smiled more broadly, showing all my teeth, and said, 'nice maize, good maize. Nice, good,' I repeated because I had no more English adjectives with which to describe my produce."
The old woman gets offended, thinking that Mr matimba the headmaster is exploiting her for child labor. When he explains to her the truth, The old lady gives her 10£, which pays her school subscription and books for a year.

Tambudzai's uncle Babamukuru is the headmaster of the missionary secondary School. He and his wife both have Master's degrees, but Maiguey, the wife, never has her graduate degree mentioned, nor is her money from teaching in the school her own.
When Tambudzai's uncle and aunt and their two kids go to England for them to get their Master's degrees, Tambudzai's cousins Nyasha and her Chido go with them. When they return, a huge party takes place, but something is wrong with Nyasha and her brother. They don't speak Shona, the local language, anymore.
Tambudzai and Nyasha had always been close friends, growing up together. Now things are sad and different:
" 'ask them, Maiguru,' I urged. 'Even if they don't understand, they wouldn't refuse, would they? Things like that,' I continued vaguely but earnestly, 'would bring their speech back more quickly.' The singers were becoming inspired, the drums more and more animated. I could see Nyasha listening, tapping her fingers on her crossed knees in time to the drums. She talked to her mother eagerly in an English whose accent was so strange I could not understand a word of it, co-opting Chido into the discussion and talking in very definite tones. I was sure that my cousins wanted to join the merrymaking but Maiguru was not encouraging. I could tell from her voice, which was flat and passive, and from the odd word that I picked up like 'dirty' and 'sleep'. It was odd that Maiguru preferred her children not to dance. If they could not enjoy themselves with us, there was no reason for them to have come home. I think Nyasha was saying similar things to Maiguru because in the end her irritation became so open that my aunts stopped their Lively conversation to find out what was going on.
... I went outside, trying very hard not to let the episode spoil the rest of the evening. It was difficult though. I had been looking forward to having my cousins back so that things would be fun and friendly and warm as they had been in the old days, but it was not happening that way..."

Though Tambudzai is extremely smart and quick to learn, Nhamo of course is the one who gets to go to secondary school, and when he goes, he really rubs it in to Tambudzai, telling her how he will get shoes and socks and shorts with no holes in them, everything brand new bought for him by their uncle.
"I think a little jealousy was permissible, even healthy under the circumstances. Unfortunately, since I had stopped reacting to Nhamo a long time ago, so that all the annoying things he did had been building up for a long time, and since this time the irritation was too persistent to ignore I was more than a little, less than healthily jealous. This was untactical of me because Nhamo carried on in the way that he did, describing himself in unqualified superlatives and suggesting that his good fortune was unquestionably deserved, a natural consequence of the fact that he was Nhamo, only in order to bait me..."

When Nhamo dies, this is Tambudzai's chance to shine. She is taken to her uncle and aunt's house, and gets to attend the missionary School. At first, her cousin Nyasha doesn't speak much to her, but gradually they grow close again, sharing Nyasha's room.
Nyasha butts heads with her father, because she doesn't agree with the way their society puts female women in the secondary place behind men. She has learned in England to dress as she wants and to speak as she wants. Thus, They constantly get into arguments, but one day it goes too far.
" 'today I am going to teach you a lesson,' he told her. 'How can you go about disgracing me? Me! Like that! No, you cannot do it. I am respected at this mission. I cannot have a daughter who behaves like a whore.'
Nyasha was capable of pointing out that by his own definition that was exactly what he had, but she did not. 'Don't hit me, daddy,' she said backing away from him. 'I wasn't doing anything wrong. Don't hit me.'
'Yuwi, yuwi, yuwi!' Maiguru moaned. 'Babawa Chido, do you want to kill me with your anger? She is only a child, Babawa Chido, a child.'
'you must learn to be obedient,' Babamukuru told Nyasha and struck her again.
'I told you not to hit me,' said Nyasha, punching him in the eye.
Babamukuro bellowed and snorted that if Nyasha was going to behave like a man, then by his mother who was at rest in her grave he would fight her like one. They went down onto the floor, babamukuru alternately punching nyasha's head and banging it against the floor, screaming or trying to scream but only squeaking, because his throat has seized up with fury, that he would kill her with his bare hands; nyasha, screaming and wriggling and doing what damage she could. Maiguru and Chido could not stay out of it any longer. They had to hold him."
I had to admire Nyasha for that one.

Tambudzai's father is a shameful, lying, lazy drunk. Though he does little to bring in any money, he constantly impregnates his wife so that they have more and more children. A distant cousin of babamurcuru's, named Takesure, comes down from his farm to help on the homestead.
Lucia is the sister of Tambudzai's mom. She comes to the homestead to help her sister, who is pregnant and feeling weak. Tambudzai already has two wives at home, but he impregnates Lucia. Takesure, is as lazy as tambudzai's Dad:
"lucia, who had grown shrewd in her years of dealing with men, denied that the fetus was Takesure's. she accredited it instead to my father, although this could not have been true. My father, doing his best not to offend babamukuru, had sensibly not allowed himself to enjoy Lucia's voluptuousness until after she had fallen pregnant. From this feat of self-control Lucia had deduced that my father had marginally more stamina than Takesure, and for this reason would make a better father. For his part, my father was quite taken with the idea of having Lucia as a second wife. Although she had been brought up in abject poverty, she had not, like my mother, been married to it at 15. Her spirit, unfettered in this respect, had experimented with living and drawn its own conclusions. Consequently, she was a much bolder woman than my mother, and my father, who no longer felt threatened by a woman's boldness since he had proved his mettle by dispiriting my mother, was excited by the thought of possessing a woman like lucia, like possessing a thunderstorm to make it crackle and thunder and lightning at your command."
But Babamukuru has different ideas, he's not going to let his brother be a bigamist, and he is surprised that his brother did not know that such things were sinful and would bring the wrath of God down on the entire family. He fixes this mess by bringing Lucía to the missionary and getting her a job at the women's hostel nearby. Then he decides that Tambudzai's mom and dad need to be properly married.
This inspiring book is a semi autobiographical work by the author.

I got the point of this, but at the same time I felt a sustained sense of discomfort while reading due to the combination of Tambu‘s self-centered actions and the unceasing “you” which points the finger back towards the reader. It wasn‘t a pleasurable reading experience. However, the author has lived an incredible life and stood up for what she believes in, and I really admire what she tries to do with her writing.½

This second volume in a trilogy is rather depressing. It outlines Tambu‘s experience at boarding school during the war leading to Zimbabwe‘s sovereignty in 1980. Her every achievement is thwarted by a broken, racist, colonial system. The writing is simple but peppered with rather poetic language. I didn‘t enjoy this as much as the first book, but that it‘s because I felt so bad for the frustration of Tambu as she deals with so much unfairness.

In the Rhodesia of the sixties life is hard for black people, particularly women. Tambu has to leave school when the crops fail, because her father is willing to find only enough money to educate her brother. It was her father's fault that the family was living in poverty: the crops failed because he did no work; he spent his money on drink. He relied for money on his older brother, called by the courtesy title Babamukuru, headmaster at a mission school, who had risen in the world through education and scholarships provided by white missionaries. When Tambu's brother dies, her uncle agrees to pay for her education and takes her into his household. The whole family worships Babamukuru and he accepts it as his due. It's genuine worship with dancing, bowing, ululating, and endless praise.

There are five main female characters in the book including Tambu. Her mother sleeps on a mat on the bedroom floor while her husband sleeps on the bed, and is bound to a miserable existence with her feckless, promiscuous husband by almost continuous pregnancies. Lucia, the sister of Tambu's mother, is a wicked woman who has no proper reverence for the men in her family and stands up for herself and her sister. Babamukuru's wife is a teacher who never sees her salary, which goes straight to her husband to be spend as he sees fit. She placates her husband with baby talk, obeys his commands and tries to prevent him beating her daughter. Babamukuru's daughter, Nyasha, lived in England with her parents while they were studying for Masters' degrees, and has not learned how to be subservient, enraging her father who expects that his every word is obeyed. In order to get an education Tambu has to please her uncle, please the missionaries, excel at her studies and not lose her identity: barely possible, but she is determined. Her cousin Nyasha cannot make the same compromises.

This excellent book about women's lives in the last days of Colonial Rhodesia is well worth reading.½

modern fiction set in Harare, Zimbabwe - follows a single woman struggling to gain security/stability when she can barely find/maintain housing and a job; she encounters and interacts with many other women who share similar circumstances but are often less fortunate.

I got halfway through this but most of the time had very little idea of what was happening, other than that the main character was going through lots of different, confusing things.

This was a stunning novel, the first in a trilogy. I was impressed with Tambu's character and the narration she provides. This is a coming of age story, and while reading you can really see the processing she does as she describes how she felt at the time and how her perceptions are different now. Stellar writing! All the characters are fleshed-out humans with many facets. I can't wait to buy a copy of each of the sequels.

Why hasn't everyone read this book? Why isn't it taught in every high school English/social studies class when we teach colonialism? Why doesn't my enormous public library system have the sequel?

I read this book avidly. Dangaremba writing is precise and engaging. The plot is compelling. Her characters are so vivid and individual. It is one of the best novels I've read in a long time. Somehow she seamlessly sews together a coming of age story in all its universality with a story that also elaborates on the condition of indigenous people's living under colonialism. Right now, when these issues of justice and oppression are rising again to public attention, it felt particularly enlightening.

Back in the 1960s, when Zimbabwe was still called Rhodesia, a girl dreamed of a better life than ceaseless manual labor she sees her mother doing. She gets a few years in school, thanks to her uncle, a man with a degree who studied in the UK and who now supports an extended family. Her older brother is the one who gets to continue with school, until a tragedy gives her an opportunity she is determined to make work for her.

This is the first book in a trilogy by Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga and I'll certainly be continuing my journey with Tambu as she fights for the opportunities an education might bring her. This was a well-crafted book that did not feel like a debut. Dangarembga plays off of the difference between Tambu and her cousin, a girl her age who went with her family to England and grew up there, only to be brought back as a teenager and expected to fit back into a deeply patriarchal and hierarchical society, which she finds impossible to do. The novel gives a glimpse of what life was like then for an ordinary Rhodesian, the enormous gap between the Black population and the colonists, and the enormous resiliency and tenacity of one girl.

33. This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga
published: 2018
format: 280-page paperback
acquired: June
read: Jul 12-19
time reading: 10:01, 2.1 mpp
rating: 4
locations: Zimbabwe
about the author: born 1959 in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)

My Litsy review says a lot in small amount of space:

"This an uncomfortable book. After building up our hero, Tambu, in two terrific novels, Dangarembga essentially tosses that away. Zimbabwe is not such an easily wrapped place and her previous construct is here, maybe intentionally, undermined. This is not a Tambu you‘re going to like, nor will you like seeing her struggles from inside your own head in a 2nd person narrative. I‘m partially horrified and partially impressed. A difficult read."

This novel follows Tambu again, continuing from the previous novels but into a very different Zimbabwe. The first two books took place in the 1960's and 1970's, during the "War". (The Rhodesian Bush War—also called the Second Chimurenga as well as the Zimbabwe War of Liberation, 1965-1979). I don't think we are ever given a date for the time period covered here, but at one point a 2002 movie is mentioned, and we have email but not smart phones. This Zimbabwe is peaceful, somewhat prosperous, and has a flourishing tourist industry. It also has its tensions: an accepted but corrupt government, a kind of tense cooperation between the mostly wealthy whites and the rest of the population, and, notably, a significant set of psychologically scarred veteran freedom fighters who tend to be discouraged with the results of their victory. Thematically this builds on the last chapters of [The Book of Not] where Dangarembga began to explore the dangers of the post-war urban capitalisms and its underlying emptiness. There it almost felt like an add on. But here Tambu's struggles within this environment are the main plot.

I'm really glad I read the first two books before this ([Nervous Conditions] and [The Book of Not]). They aren't essential plot-wise, but they provide a context, and a background for Tambu, adding a kind of resonating shock value here. Also the first two books are really rewarding, and, unlike this one, are easy on the reader.

2021
https://www.librarything.com/topic/333774#7558712

2021
I recommend rebeccanyc's review below. My short review can found on LT here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/330945#7546426

8. Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga
introduction: Kwame Anthony Appiah (2004)
published: 1988
format: 217-page paperback
acquired: December
read: Feb 14-28
time reading: 9 hr 17 min, 2.6 min/page
rating: 4½
locations: 1960’s Zimbabwe
about the author: born 1959 in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)

I read this as part of my effort to read the 2020 BookerLong List, which includes [This Mournable Body]. That novel is part of a trilogy that includes this, [Nervous Conditions] (1988), and [The Book of Not] (2006). I plan to read the trilogy.

[Nervous Conditions] is considered one of the most important African books, with a theme on the limits of women in Africa. I was expecting dark disturbing stuff, and this was reinforced by the first line. The book opens, “I was not sorry when my brother died.” But "disturbing" is not the first thing on a readers mind while reading. More like "fascinating".

This novel captures a childhood world in 1960's rural Zimbabwe, where life depends on crops and a local river provides key necessities. And then it shows this child's view of education in a Protestant mission in a city. The novel rings with cultural clashes—rural vs urban, uneducated vs educated, and, especially, cultural customs and westernization. And it looks at the variations of privilege, sexism, and racism and the unexpected stresses these bring up. This was a terrific read. Recommended.

2021
https://www.librarything.com/topic/328037#7443819½

I haven't read the winner of the 2020 Booker Prize yet, but it must have been spectacularly good to have been chosen instead of the shortlisted This Mournable Body by Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga. It's one of those books that makes me wish that all my reading were as worthwhile.

The novel tells the story of one woman's moral decay and decline into poverty and is emblematic of Zimbabwe's postcolonial debacle. So it could have been a melancholy book, but witty asides and black humour lighten the tone. At the same time, it's also a painfully honest examination of the deluded visions of Zimbabwe's leadership and the corrupt state of the nation and body politic.

Tambudzai (Tambu) is a thirty-something Zimbabwean down on her luck. And it's not her fault: she was uplifted from rural poverty by an uncle who enabled her education but despite her degree she can't get work and she can't get ahead. Progress towards a better life and success are a mirage.

Tired of being paid a miserable wage while men took credit for the work she did, she imprudently resigned from her job in an advertising agency. When the novel opens she is exhausting her meagre savings in a rundown hostel where she is past her use-by date because the hostel is for young women, and she is no longer young.

Very soon the reader is drawn into the moral collapse that represents the morass into which Zimbabwe has fallen. Tambu goes for a job interview as secretary for the Widow Riley but is refused entrance by a wily servant who perceives that Tambu will displace her. Discouraged yet again, Tambu goes home in anger that expresses itself when a mob turns on one of the girls from the hostel, a flashy, sexy good-time-girl called Gertrude. I don't know whether the image of Tambu standing ready to cast a stone is a Biblical allusion to shared guilt or if that's me imposing a colonial interpretation on a traditional Zimbabwean way of 'disciplining' unruly young women who depart from patriarchal standards of behaviour. But either way the scene skewers the reader into being complicit. On the one hand Tambu is addressing herself; on the other, the second-person 'you' is the reader—both the postcolonial Zimbabwean who wilfully refuses to take responsibility for the descent into mob rule and the wider world which looks away, helpless to intervene in affairs for which under colonialism it was the bedrock but which it now no longer controls.

Her mouth is a pit. She is pulling you in. You do not want her to entomb you. You drop your gaze but do not walk off because on the one hand you are hemmed in by the crowd. On the other if you return to solitude you will fall back inside yourself where there is no place to hide. (p.24)

Justification comes easily:

You did not want to do what you did at the market. You did not want all that to happen, nor did anyone else. No one wanted it. It is just something that took place like that, like a moment of madness. (p.28)

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2021/02/13/this-mournable-body-by-tsitsi-dangarembga/

I had to quit this book because the main characters depression was too realistic and depressing, couldn’t face reading any more. Nothing redeeming happened in the first half of the book so, no thank you.

[The Book of Not] is the second in autobiographical fiction trilogy by Zimbabwean author, Tsitsi Dangarembga. I absolutely loved the first book, [Nervous Conditions], for its authentic voice, look at Zimbabwean culture, and feminist voice. Unfortunately, I didn't think this sequel was quite as successful.

In this book, Tambu, the main character, goes off to her next level of schooling, one of the best high schools in the country, which is mainly populated by white Rhodesians. There she deals with racism but also run-of-the-mill girlfriend drama and academic pressures. She is searching for her identity and torn between responsibilities to her country and culture and her desire to escape to a better life.

While these typical teenage dramas are playing out, the country is going through serious war and violence as the native people try to oust the white colonist. Tambu is involved and there are some brutal scenes of her family's experience, but she seems to remain on the outside of the violence and the focus stays on her high school experience.

While I still liked this book and will read the next in the trilogy, it was definitely less enjoyable for me. I felt like the writing was a bit overdone and the focus was more narrowly on Tambu. I missed some of the characters from the first novel.

I think it was the American literary critic Harold Bloom who once stated that the ultimate criterion for great literature was characters evolving throughout the novel, poem, or play: at the end they have to be no longer the same as at the beginning. If that's right, then this novel by the Zimbabwean writer Tsiti Dangarembga (° 1959) is an absolute success.

We get to know main character Tambudzai Sigauke (Tambu) when she is looking for work and permanent shelter in the capital Harare. At this point she already has quite a background: relieved that she was able to escape her rural village through successful studies, she worked for a while in a flashy advertising agency, but left that office after apparent racial and gender-related discrimination; and now she is in a desperate condition while her family back home counts on her support. Her experiences have made Tambu a fragile, very insecure personality, while at the same time still cherishing the ambition to prove herself. Throughout this novel, we will see Tambu's star rising and falling, as a result of both unexpectedly prosperous and predictably dramatic events, eventually ending in a form of resignation.

Dangarembga aptly describes the difficult living and working conditions in Zimbabwe, which still is marked by the war of independence (veterans play a rather nasty role in this novel), by remnants of the colonial regime (in practice whites remain in the lead), and due to the rotting corruption of the current regime ('the old crocodile' is mentioned once, needless to say who this refers to). But above all, this novel shows how a fragile personality can be crushed by a particular culture, such as the ubiquitous macho-sexism, by structures that aim for cheap money, and by old family traditions that impose obligations, etc. It is one of the great achievements of this novel that it offers a complex cocktail of these elements, within many intermingling layers.

It’s the prudent resilience of Tambu that makes this novel stand out: she constantly ends up into trouble, regularly collapses under the pressure, but she also manages to surpass this, or at least adapt to her difficulties. It's a great example of female empowerment. And the great merit of Dangaremgba is that she did not turn this into a cheap feel-good story (along the lines of for instance The Color Purple): even in the end, Tambu remains vulnerable and insecure, albeit to some extent purified.

From a literary point of view, this novel is a bit precarious: there’s a succession of brilliant and slightly dragging passages, and especially at the end the story unwinds a bit too quickly. But it's mainly through the narrative point of view, - the author constantly addressing Tambu in the you-form (very unusual in literature) -, that Dangarembga succeeds in arousing our involvement as a reader and our sympathy with the fragile Tambu. I think this novel was rightly placed on the Short List of the Booker Prize.

I was incredibly disappointed in this book which I listened to instead of read. The narrator, Adenrele Ojo, actually did a pretty good job of narrating it and at least I didn't waste valuable reading time on the book. I saw that this book was picked for the 2020 Booker Prize shortlist. That was my main motivation for listeneing to it and for continuing to listen to it. Otherwise I think I would have ditched it after a few hours of trying to get into it; I figured the Booker Prize jury must have seen something in it. Whatever that was it escaped me.

This novel is the conclusion of a trilogy set in Zimbabwe. The first two books take place around the War for Indipendence but this one is set 20 years later. The main character, Tambudza. quit her job at a public relations agency in Harare when she discovered that white males were taking credit for her work. Now in her 40s Tambu is finding it hard to find another job and she is living in a run-down boarding house with little money for food. Eventually she gets a job teaching at a girls' school but her mental health issues cause her to have a violent outburst against one of the students. She then spends some time in an asylum from which her cousin frees her, bringing her to her own house to rest and recuperate. Then, one day Tembu runs into her old boss Tracey who has started an eco-tourism business. Tracey offers Tembu a job there which Tembu accepts. The job comes with a good salary and free accommodation but Tembu continues to have emotional issues that threaten her employment. When it is suggested by Tracey that she set up a tourist destination at her family's village Tembu agrees even though she has not been back there for years. Her relationships with her mother, father, sister and nieces are problematic and, in the end, Tembu must leave her job and her village with no clear path for her future.

This whole novel is written from the second person point of view which was obviously a deliberate choice by the author but it just didn't work for me. It kept me from feeling any empathy for Tembu since she seemed so distant. I read in another review that they found the second person POV put them in the other person's shoes but that was not my experience. I also found that the discussions of Tembu's mental and emotional problems were left without any resolution which was frustrating and unsatisfactory. Perhaps if I had read the other two books I would have been able to see the bigger themes that the author was trying to explore but this book is not enough to let me do that.½