Nervous Conditions: A Novel

by Tsitsi Dangarembga

Overview

A modern classic from the Booker-shortlisted author of This Mournable Body

The groundbreaking first novel in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s award-winning trilogy, Nervous Conditions, won the Commonwealth Writers Prize and has been “hailed as one of the 20th century’s most significant works of African literature” (The New York Times). Two decades before Zimbabwe would win independence and ended white minority rule, thirteen-year-old Tambudzai Sigauke embarks on her education. On her shoulders rest the economic hopes of her parents, siblings, and extended family, and within her burns the desire for independence. She yearns to be free of the constraints of her rural village and thinks she’s found her way out when her wealthy uncle offers to sponsor her schooling. But she soon learns that the education she receives at his mission school comes with a price.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781644450710
Publisher:	Graywolf Press
Publication date:	05/18/2021
Series:	Nervous Conditions Series
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	8.10(w) x 5.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Tsitsi Dangarembga is the author of three books in the Nervous Conditions, series. In 2021 she was honored with the PEN Award for Freedom of Expression. She is also a winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. She is the director of the Institute of Creative Arts for Progress in Africa Trust. She lives in Zimbabwe.

Chipo Chung is an actress and producer, known for Sunshine, In the Loop, and Proof.

Editorial Reviews

Dangarembga’s sentences are chromatic, rich and impres-sively precise with wonderful detail.”—The Guardian (UK)

“Dangarembga investigates the ironic psychological demands of global capitalism on a country whose citizens have been fractured by that system. Complex and flawed, they are more than symbols. . . . Dangarembga treats supreme cruelty with sublime reserve.”—Los Angeles Review of Books

“Dangarembga is a magpie for evocative detail. . . . Dangarembga’s depiction of [Tambu], abject and vulnerable, yet struggling ever onwards, is reminiscent of Jean Rhys at her best.”—The Spectator (UK)

“A great writer. . . . She has a wonderful sense of relationships, a wonderful sense of people, a wonderful sense of place. She ex-poses the oppression, of women in particular, in a manner that I think is beautiful, because you can’t disagree. She is not mak-ing heavy weather of this—it is as natural as the grass grows.”—Chinua Achebe

“Tsitsi Dangarembga opened up the idea that a black woman from Zimbabwe could write a book. There’s a whole genera-tion of Zimbabwean women who are so grateful to Tsitsi for being a forerunner.”—Petina Gappah

From the Publisher

One of the twentieth century’s most significant works of African literature.”

New York Times

Dangarembga’s depiction of [Tambu], abject and vulnerable, yet struggling ever onwards, is reminiscent of Jean Rhys at her best.”

The Spectator (London)