It is the truest cliché of readers that we travel the world through our books. Until recently, I knew next-to-nothing about the former Rhodesia, or the lives of white Africans. These three memoirs taught me a little bit about both.
Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller
This new classic chronicles the author’s formative years during and after the Rhodesian civil war. Fuller’s family routinely set up house in desolate places, where land mines, leopards, and spitting cobras were the stuff of childhood. Fuller skillfully portrays her parents – two hardworking, hard-drinking people haunted by loss and their own prejudice – and captures “the incongruous, lawless, joyful, violent, upside-down, illogical certainty of Africa.”
The Last Resort: A Memoir of Zimbabwe by Douglas Rogers
Rogers was born and raised in Zimbabwe but left for Europe and the U.S. as soon as he could. When President Robert Mugabe launched a program to reclaim white-owned lands, Rogers’ parents, who own a famous game farm and backpacking lodge, refused to budge. The author reluctantly returns home to help them and learns surprising things about his homeland and his family. This wise and witty memoir will appeal to fans of The Tender Bar.
When A Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa by Peter Godwin
In this deeply personal memoir, journalist Godwin recounts his father’s decline and death against the backdrop of Zimbabwe’s collapse. Mugabe’s ill-conceived land reforms plunge the economy into chaos, devastate the food supply, and foster violence throughout the country. Godwin examines his own soul and mourns not only for his father, but for the people of Zimbabwe – black and white alike – in this beautifully written memoir.
