Hope Deferred

Finished April 13
Hope Deferred: Narratives of Zimbabwean Lives compiled and edited by Peter Orner and Annie Holmes

This collection of narratives includes experiences of a wide variety of people: black and white, male and female, urban and rural, from a variety of economic and educational backgrounds, aged from 14 to 63. What all of them have in common is the destruction of their lives. These are people who lost everything, many of them were tortured, many lost people close to them, and most are still struggling to find their way forward. Some are still in Zimbabwe, some are exiles. They have seen Zimbabwe change from a country with a good economy, a country known as the breadbasket of Africa to a country that imports almost everything its people need, with 90% unemployment and a valueless currency.
But most of them still have hope. Hope that their country can recover, hope that they can return, hope that their families can better their situation, hope for a Zimbabwe they can be proud of.
Many of the experiences recounted here are difficult to read, especially those involving torture, but I am glad that someone took the time to go and find these people and interview them and tell their stories, so that we can all hear them and know that these lives exist alongside our own.

Mix of Fiction and Nonfiction

Finished December 17
Alfred and Emily by Doris Lessing
This is a fascinating book on Lessing's parents, Alfred Taylor and Emily McVeagh. The first part of the book is a fictional life of the two, where Lessing gives them different happier, yet not perfect lives. This is followed by an explanation where she explains what influenced her choices for the fictional lives. The last part consists of a number of chapters discussing Alfred and Emily's real lives and Doris' experience of them.
Alfred had wanted to be a farmer, but lost a leg in the first World War and had various ailments, including post-traumatic stress disorder (untreated as it often was then) that came out of his wartime experiences. Emily was a nurse at the Royal Free Hospital and became a matron at an unusually young age. The two met when Emily nursed Alfred following his injuries in the war. After the war the couple went to Persia for a few years and then took a farm in Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. Lessing's issues with her mother have appeared in many of her other works, but she discusses them here as a generational issue, arguing in favor of women working. Lessing is open about her family, recognizing her own issues in the relationships, but also compassionate in reflecting upon her parents and the lives they ended up with. As she says in her forward, she hopes they would approve the lives she has given them.

Great memoir

Finished November 29
When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: a memoir of Africa by Peter Godwin
This memoir by journalist Peter Godwin tells not only of the years from his sister's wedding to his father's death, but also gives a great deal of information about the history of Zimbabwe and the political and economic situation as it deteriorates. He also talks about his father's history as he learns of it in his father's final years. So much of this is fascinating it is hard to know where to start. The people that Godwin encounters in his trips to Zimbabwe are shown as individuals and their issues are shown in factual terms as Godwin's journalistic roots take over. While Godwin shows the collapse of the economy in Zimbabwe, his description of the people there give the reader hope for the future.
I learned so much here, especially about Zimbabwe and its history, but also had an enjoyable read.