When a Crocodile Eats the Sun is one I picked up at a small bookshop by the Old Street tube station- Camden Lock books. mostly because it cost 2.99, which was within my budget that week:) Also, it seemed interesting, as my favorite type of book to read is one which not only educates me but entertains me with a narrative.
I actually wanted to blog about this book several times (prior to finishing it) but didn't get a chance to as my computer is a piece of crap. This book definitely opened my eyes to a lot of things I had no idea about.
The book is a memoir of Peter Godwin, a white Zimbabwean who has written for Newsweek, National Geographic etc and done numerous documentaries on southern Africa. It tells the tale of his family- his relationship with his parents mainly- from the nineties until his dad's death in 2004. But the brilliant thing about the book is how he places the story of his family against the backdrop of everything that was happening in Zimbabwe at the time.
Before reading the book, I could count the things I knew about Zimbabwe on one hand. Let's see... Mugabe is an 'evil dictator'.... there was crazy inflation going on.... unrest in the country.... yeah that's about as detailed of info that I ever knew. This book gave me quite the education when it came to Zimbabwe and Mugabe of the nineties and 00's.
Things I learned: well, I learned about the civil war in which Zimbabwe gained independence from Britain and became Zimbabwe (from 'Rhodesia'), Mugabe came to power on the back the the civil war as a revolutionary and uniting leader, it was only after years that his true colors started to show, during the nineties and then into the 2000's he tried to radically socialize the country through his 'Land Reform' programme. The program actually did nothing but destroy business and agriculture in the country. It became a war against white farmers; Mugabe used propaganda to make black Zimbabweans feel that the white farmers had taken their land at their expense and we're getting rich off the land which was rightfully theirs (thus he was playing into old colonial mindsets etc). He got a group of civil war veterans (Wovits) to occupy white farmers farms in Zimbabwe and eventually drove them off the land, killing many, dislocating many others. The land was mostly then allocated to Mugabe henchmen who didn't know how to farm the land thus it went into ruin. And thus the country took a nosedive. To read more about the topic here's some websites....
Good book. But may not interest those who aren't interested in politics and world affairs. But if you do care what's going on in other parts of the world and want a view you won't get from American new stations, definitely a good read. 3.2/4 stars. A bit more difficult, a bit boring at parts, but worth it in the end.
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