Product Description

Tambudzai dreams of education, but her hopes only materialise after her brother's death, when she goes to live with her uncle. At his mission school, her critical faculties develop rapidly, bringing her face to face with a new set of conflicts involving her uncle, his education and his family. Tsitsi Dangarembga's quietly devastating first novel offers a portrait of Zimbabwe, where enlightenment brings its own profound dilemmas.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8611 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Doris Lessing
Many good novels written by men have come out of Africa, but few by black women. This is the novel we have been waiting for...I am sure it will be a classic.

Excerpted from Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga. Copyright © 2001. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
I was not sorry when my brother died. Nor am I apologising for my callousness, as you may define it, my lack of feeling. For it is not that at all. I feel many things these days, much more than I was able to feel in the days when I was young and my brother died, and there are reasons for this more than the mere consequence of age. Therefore 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 and Lucia's; about my mother's and Maiguru's entrapment; and about Nyasha's rebellion - Nyuha, far-minded and isolated, my uncle's daughter, whose rebellion may not in the end have been successful.

Customer Reviews

Big subjects on a tiny stage
The feminist and colonial themes that underpin this novel have their colours tied to the mast. At times, the characters words sound like speeches, delivered from a platform. While in a way this heavy-handedness seems to me to be a weakness of the novel, as a piece of fiction, it does pack quite a punch.

The characters are beautifully drawn and it's they that keep you turning the pages, because there is little going on in terms of a narrative plotline. From time to time, things move rather too slowly - like when our narrator, Tambu, first arrives at the mission school - but in the main, the gentle unfolding of the plot works because it is populated by such 3-dimensional characters. Although everyone is in some way flawed, the author gives them all their own voice, allowing them the opportunity to explain themselves, their mindset and their actions. Though choosing not to engage with the issue of 1960s Rhodesian apartheid, the author does take a close up look at the impact of race and colonisation at a family level, and indeed at a personal level. This is not the sweeping political tale that a male writer might have told, but racism and sexism on a micro level, shaping and directing the lives of a handful of women and girls.

An unseen window to the world of African women
Set in colonial Rhodesia, Tsitsi Dangarembga's novel chronicles the beginning of Tambudzai's new life after her brother's untimely death leaves the way open for her to acquire an education.

Coming from poverty, Tambudzai's shot at gaining a much-desired education relies on chance and the benevolence of her greatly revered, educated uncle, who believes that someone in every branch of his family should have an education to help allieviate the poverty endured by the rest. However, Tambudzai's initial desire to expand her horizons brings its own challenges and contradictions with it, best illustrated through the person of her cousin Nyasha, whose Westernised behaviour is increasingly regarded as unbecoming of a girl.

Although this is at times quite a heavy read, desribing in some detail the lives of rural African women around their often incompetent but ever superior men-folk, and despite the fact that it has a very unsatisfactory ending, this remains a very thoughtful and insightful book. There are so few African novels about women, that it is refreshing to read about often unseen characters. Although you are constantly aware of their second-class status within their families, schools and society at large, this is engaging and quietly gripping and I'm left feelng that there should be more to come of Tambudzai's story.

Love this book!
I absolutely love this book! From the first line you know this is going to be an engaging story - "I was not sorry when my brother died". A sign of impending events - a great hook into the story. Definitely recommended!