This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.
A powerful and intensely human insight into the civil war in Zimbabwe, focusing on a white farmer and his maid who find themselves on opposing sides. One bright morning Nigel Hough, one of the few remaining white farmers in Mugabe's Zimbabwe, received the news he was dreading - a crowd were at the gate demanding he surrender his home and land. To his horror, his family's much-loved nanny Aqui was at the head of the violent mob that then stole his homestead and imprisoned him in an outhouse By tracing the intertwined lives of Nigel and Aqui - rich and poor, white and black, master and maid - through intimate and moving interviews, Christina Lamb captures not just the source of a terrible conflict, but also her own conviction that there is still hope for one of Africa's most beautiful countries.… (more)
Among the gold mines of the inland plains between the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers [there is a] . . . fortress built of stones of marvelous size, and there appears to be no mortar joining them . . . This edifice is almost surrounded by hills, upon which are others resembling it in the fashioning of stone and the absence of mortar and one of them is a tower more than 12 meters high. - Vicente Pegado, captain at the Portuguese garrison of Sofala, on seeing the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, dzimba dza mabwe, House of Stone, 1531
I have one great fear in my heart - that one day when they are turned to loving they will find we are turned to hating. - Alan Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country (1948)
Dedication
To my parents who taught me there are always at least two sides to a story
First words
Quotations
Last words
'We have a saying in Shona - gomo radonha - when the King has died the mountain falls,' he says, as if in warning.
A powerful and intensely human insight into the civil war in Zimbabwe, focusing on a white farmer and his maid who find themselves on opposing sides. One bright morning Nigel Hough, one of the few remaining white farmers in Mugabe's Zimbabwe, received the news he was dreading - a crowd were at the gate demanding he surrender his home and land. To his horror, his family's much-loved nanny Aqui was at the head of the violent mob that then stole his homestead and imprisoned him in an outhouse By tracing the intertwined lives of Nigel and Aqui - rich and poor, white and black, master and maid - through intimate and moving interviews, Christina Lamb captures not just the source of a terrible conflict, but also her own conviction that there is still hope for one of Africa's most beautiful countries.
Google Books — Loading...
(4)
Wikipedia in English
2