When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa
by:
Peter Godwin (author)
After his father's heart attack in 1984, Peter Godwin began a series of pilgrimages back to Zimbabwe, the land of his birth, from Manhattan, where he now lives. On these frequent visits to check on his elderly parents, he bore witness to Zimbabwe's dramatic spiral downwards into thejaws of...
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After his father's heart attack in 1984, Peter Godwin began a series of pilgrimages back to Zimbabwe, the land of his birth, from Manhattan, where he now lives. On these frequent visits to check on his elderly parents, he bore witness to Zimbabwe's dramatic spiral downwards into thejaws of violent chaos, presided over by an increasingly enraged dictator. And yet long after their comfortable lifestyle had been shattered and millions were fleeing, his parents refuse to leave, steadfast in their allegiance to the failed state that has been their adopted home for 50 years.Then Godwin discovered a shocking family secret that helped explain their loyalty. Africa was his father's sanctuary from another identity, another world.WHEN A CROCODILE EATS THE SUN is a stirring memoir of the disintegration of a family set against the collapse of a country. But it is also a vivid portrait of the profound strength of the human spirit and the enduring power of love.
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Format: ebook
ISBN:
9780316032094 (0316032093)
Publish date: April 10th 2008
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Edition language: English
Category:
Non Fiction,
Travel,
Autobiography,
Memoir,
Biography,
History,
Cultural,
Africa,
Book Club,
Biography Memoir,
World War II,
Holocaust
Extremely well-written story about family, identity, and what we owe each other, set against the backdrop of Zimbabwe and Mugabe's dictatorship.
I was debating on whether to read this book, When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa, or the author's book on his childhood growing up in Rhodesia Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africafirst. This one focuses upon his father's life in Zimbabwe, and how he ended up there. I believe I made the wrong ...
Godwin's memoir of growing up in Zimbabwe is a good companion piece to Fuller's Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood; like Fuller's autobiography, Godwin's works best in the childhood segments. Godwin captures changing attitudes and moods over time and shows the sociopolitical ch...
An exceptional memoir--fascinating, insightful, moving, and completely engrossing.
I didn’t expect this book to be quite so personal or so much about the author’s relationship with his parents and their history. It did give quite a look at what life was like in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. I had heard in the news of the take-over of the white farms in Zimbabwe and the unbelievable inflation...
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