A Son of the Soil

A Son of the Soil is Wilson Katiyo's powerful debut novel, first published in 1976 and widely read across Zimbabwe and internationally. Set during the final decades of white-ruled Rhodesia, the novel follows Alexio Shonga from childhood in a rural village to adolescence in the segregated township of Salisbury (now Harare).

Through village folklore, family tensions and the harsh realities of racial discrimination, Alexio gradually develops a political awareness that leads him toward the liber...