Mukiwa - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 177010013X ISBN 13: 9781770100138

Synopsis

This autobiography is the story of Peter Godwin, who grew up in Rhodesia in the 1960s, aware, but only dimly, of the divisions that would lead to civil war. His childhood was spent among African children who could never be his friends, and white adults who were beginning to perceive the anachronism that their late colonial lifestyle represented. Guerilla killings began, and Peter began to get used to violent death. Conscripted into the army at 17, he was commanding units of 100 Africans fighting guerillas in the bush. After a period studying law in England he returned to Zimbabwe and began to report for the "Sunday Times" on the tribal atrocities being inflicted in Matabeleland. He discovered an horrific campaign of malignity being visited by African upon African in the name of political rectitude and patriotism.

About this title

Book Description

The award-winning memoir of a white boy growing up in Rhodesia as it went through a bloody transition to majority rule

From the Back Cover

Growing up in Rhodesia in the 1960s, Peter Godwin inhabited a magical and frightening world of leopard-hunting, lepers, witch doctors, snakes and forest fires. As an adolescent, a conscripted boy-soldier caught in the middle of a vicious civil war, and then as an adult who returned to Zimbabwe as a journalist to cover the bloody transition to majority black rule, he discovered a land stalked by death and danger.

‘The life of the white boys and girls in colonial Africa has vanished now, but this fine and powerful memoir is a marvellous contribution to its literature’

William Boyd, Sunday Times

‘His memoir of those terrible years is a vivdly scary adventure story, as well as a poignant portrait of a bitter moral dilemma…superb’

Graham Lord, Daily Telegraph

‘I have no hesitation in saying that Mr Godwin’s book is a classic’

Anthony Daniels, Sunday Telegraph

‘Remarkable’

Doris Lessing, Observer

Edition details

• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 177010013X
• ISBN 13: 9781770100138
• Binding: Paperback