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When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 968.9105
EAN: 9780316018715
ISBN: 0316018716
Label: Back Bay Books
Manufacturer: Back Bay Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 368
Publication Date: April 10, 2008
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Studio: Back Bay Books
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Editorial Review:
Hailed by reviewers as "powerful,""haunting" and "a tour de force of personal journalism,"When A Crocodile Eats the Sun is the unforgettable story of one man's struggle to discover his past and come to terms with his present. Award winning author and journalist Peter Godwin writes with pathos and intimacy about Zimbabwe's spiral into chaos and, along with it, his family's steady collapse. This dramatic memoir is a searing portrait of unspeakable tragedy and exile, but it is also vivid proof of the profound strength of the human spirit and the enduring power of love.
"In the tradition of Rian Malan and Philip Gourevitch, a deeply moving book about the unknowability of an Africa at once thrilling and grotesque. In elegant, elegiac prose, Godwin describes his father's illness and death in Zimbabwe against the backdrop of Mugabe's descent into tyranny. His parent's waning and the country's deterioration are entwined so that personal and political tragedy become inseparable, each more profound for the presence of the other" -- Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon
"A fascinating, heartbreaking, deeply illuminating memoir that has the shape and feel of a superb novel." -Kurt Anderson, author of Heydey
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - appreciating life's complexities in the face of evil
This was one of the most powerful, absorbing, moving and enlightening memoirs I've read in a long time. The way the author weaves his personal narrative in with an expose of the tragedy of life in zimbabwe under mugabe is masterful. His memoir is rich in details that reveal the complexities of his life, but he never loses the thread of his story. I can't read about southern Africa any more without conjuring up images from this book. I couldn't stop reading, and I didn't want the book to end.
Rating:  - When a Crocodile Eats the Sun A Memoir of Africa
Peter Godwin has written a very good follow-up to MUKIWA. His personal account of his family's history in Rhodesia-Zimbabwe is honest and absorbing for a genre that can be self-serving. I hope others will learn from this book that politics are never black or white,just human.
Rating: - Heart-breaking and deeply moving
Peter Godwin was born in Rhodesia, and in 1996 he published 'Makiwa', a gripping account of how he grew up in that country. He was conscripted into the Rhodesian army to fight against the independence movement, by which time he felt that he was fighting in an unjust cause. He eventually got to England, became a journalist, and in 1981, now based in the United States, he returned to what in 1980 had become independent Zimbabwe, partly because his parents were still living there and partly because ... Read More
Rating: - When a Crocodile Eats the Sun
Peter Godwin's book, titled above, is a very worth while read. In plain dialogue he lets the rest of the world know what is really going on in Zimbabwe in the most sensitive way possible through his own families lives. The book is beautifully written, I couldn't put it down once I started reading it, more especially after following the last fiasco of an election in June 2008. Why the other African nations let Mugabwe get away with what he is doing to his own people, is beyond me. Farms that were ... Read More
Rating:  - Lived in Rhodesia and Zimbabwe for 26 years - left in 1976.
A good description of what is happening to "the man/woman in the street" in Zimbabwe by using the experiences of his aging mother and father.
However, the author fails to set important context as he did not live through the Rhodesia to Zimbabwe transitition. Also, by the time this book was published, Zimbabwe was already accelerating towards complete devastation for 99% of the population.
Ended up a "lightweight" editorial with no recriminations or recommendations.
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