The crocodile in the title is Robert Mugabe, but the book is about far more than the tyrannical rule of Zimbabwe's longtime president. Indeed, this memoir intertwines two distinct stories, one profoundly personal, the other involving an entire civilization collapsing into ruin. In 1996, journalist Peter Godwin receives an emergency call from Africa; his father has suffered a major heart attack. The son returns to the country of his birth (then Southern Rhodesia), where he witnesses his father's steady decline and ultimately his death. The father's revelation that he is a Polish Jew whose family succumbed to Hitler's massacres poignantly parallels the savage chaos unleashed by Mugabe's draconian reforms. Reading it, one almost feels that he is experiencing two simultaneous apocalypses.
Peter Godwin, an award-winning writer, is on assignment in Zululand when he is summoned by his mother to
Zimbabwe, his birthplace. His father is seriously ill; she fears he is dying. Godwin finds his country, once a postcolonial success story, descending into a vortex of violence and racial hatred. His father recovers, but over the next
few years Godwin travels regularly between his family life in Manhattan and the increasing chaos of Zimbabwe, with
its rampant inflation and land seizures making famine a very real prospect. It is against this backdrop that Godwin
discovers a fifty-year-old family secret, one which changes everything he thought he knew about his father, and his
own place in the world.
"1100270713"
Zimbabwe, his birthplace. His father is seriously ill; she fears he is dying. Godwin finds his country, once a postcolonial success story, descending into a vortex of violence and racial hatred. His father recovers, but over the next
few years Godwin travels regularly between his family life in Manhattan and the increasing chaos of Zimbabwe, with
its rampant inflation and land seizures making famine a very real prospect. It is against this backdrop that Godwin
discovers a fifty-year-old family secret, one which changes everything he thought he knew about his father, and his
own place in the world.
When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa
Peter Godwin, an award-winning writer, is on assignment in Zululand when he is summoned by his mother to
Zimbabwe, his birthplace. His father is seriously ill; she fears he is dying. Godwin finds his country, once a postcolonial success story, descending into a vortex of violence and racial hatred. His father recovers, but over the next
few years Godwin travels regularly between his family life in Manhattan and the increasing chaos of Zimbabwe, with
its rampant inflation and land seizures making famine a very real prospect. It is against this backdrop that Godwin
discovers a fifty-year-old family secret, one which changes everything he thought he knew about his father, and his
own place in the world.
Zimbabwe, his birthplace. His father is seriously ill; she fears he is dying. Godwin finds his country, once a postcolonial success story, descending into a vortex of violence and racial hatred. His father recovers, but over the next
few years Godwin travels regularly between his family life in Manhattan and the increasing chaos of Zimbabwe, with
its rampant inflation and land seizures making famine a very real prospect. It is against this backdrop that Godwin
discovers a fifty-year-old family secret, one which changes everything he thought he knew about his father, and his
own place in the world.
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When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa
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Product Details
BN ID: | 2940177400419 |
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Publisher: | Recorded Books, LLC |
Publication date: | 05/12/2020 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |
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