This Mournable Body

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 BOOKER PRIZE

A searing novel about the obstacles facing women in Zimbabwe, by one of the country's most notable authors

Anxious about her prospects after leaving a stagnant job, Tambudzai finds herself living in a run-down youth hostel in downtown Harare. For reasons that include her grim financial prospects and her age, she moves to a widow's boarding house and eventually finds work as a biology teacher. But at every turn in her attempt to make a life for herself, she is faced with a fresh humiliation, until the painful contrast between the future she imagined and her daily reality ultimately drives her to a breaking point.

In This Mournable Body, Tsitsi Dangarembga returns to the protagonist of her acclaimed first novel, Nervous Conditions, to examine how the hope and potential of a young girl and a fledgling nation can sour over time and become a bitter and floundering struggle for survival. As a last resort, Tambudzai takes an ecotourism job that forces her to return to her parents' impoverished homestead. It is this homecoming, in Dangarembga's tense and psychologically charged novel, that culminates in an act of betrayal, revealing just how toxic the combination of colonialism and capitalism can be.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Published: 08/07/2018
ISBN: 9781555978129
Pages: 304
Weight: 0.83lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.40w x 0.90d

Review Citations: BookPage 08/01/2018
Publishers Weekly 06/11/2018
Kirkus Reviews 06/15/2018
Booklist 07/01/2018 pg. 21
Library Journal 08/01/2018 pg. 84