Nervous Conditions is a novel by Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga. Semi-autobiographical, it is set in the post-colonial Rhodesia of the 1960s. The title is taken from the introduction by Jean-Paul Sartre to Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth.
When Dangarembga first offered her novel to major southern African publishers, the response was a cool one. Her book, they declared, failed to capture the thoughts and language of the African woma...
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Nervous Conditions is a novel by Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga. Semi-autobiographical, it is set in the post-colonial Rhodesia of the 1960s. The title is taken from the introduction by Jean-Paul Sartre to Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth.
When Dangarembga first offered her novel to major southern African publishers, the response was a cool one. Her book, they declared, failed to capture the thoughts and language of the African woman and could not, therefore, connect with her. Raj Patel has since denounced this as a non sequitur.
The story is told by and from the perspective of Tambudzai, a young Shona girl living in a small village in Rhodesia, whose own story begins with the death of her brother, Nhamo.
Nhamo is sent to live with his uncle Babamukuru, a strict disciplinarian, and aunt Maiguru, so that he may be educated by a mission school in the local city and later provide his family with economic support. He falls ill, however, with a severe case of the mumps, and...
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