Description:
Nominated by the Embassy of Zimbabwe
Shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, This Mournable Body is a powerful novel about the challenges facing women in Zimbabwe. Tambudzai, anxious after leaving a stagnant job, struggles to build a life in Harare. She moves from a youth hostel to a widow’s boarding house and eventually becomes a biology teacher, but at every turn she faces humiliation and disappointment.
Returning to the protagonist of Nervous Conditions, Tsitsi Dangarembga explores how hope and potential can sour over time. When Tambudzai takes an ecotourism job at her parents’ homestead, her homecoming culminates in a tense act of betrayal, exposing the harsh realities of colonialism, capitalism, and survival.