Nervous Conditions

Tsitsi Dangarembga · b. 1959 · Zimbabwe

Why it matters

A Rhodesian village girl hungers for the education that will free her and sever her from her roots. Dangarembga's landmark of African girlhood under colonialism, opening on the line 'I was not sorry when my brother died.'

At a glance

Clear coming-of-age narration; the difficulty is in its layered social critique, not the prose.