Genre: Fiction
Pages: 289
Author: Tsitsi Dangarembga, Zimbabwe
Setting: Colonial Rhodesia 1960’s
Themes: Colonialism, African Tradition; Religion
‘As if there’s everything to learn and I’ll never know it all. So, I have to keep reading and memorising, reading, and memorising all the time. To make sure it all gets in’. She gave me one of her looks. ‘I know it’s not so desperate, but I keep thinking it is. I can’t help it. Is I stop for a minute, I get so worried.’
Nyasha, excerpt from Nervous Conditions Tsitsi Dangarembga.
This is a coming-of-age narrative where the protagonist of the book, Tambudzai, transitions from her life growing up in her family’s poor homestead, to the more modernised Christian missionary homestead that her uncle, Babamukuru, lives in.
Tsitsi Dangarembga brilliantly explores the themes of gender equality in a patriarchal society and class disparity through her characters, setting the scene for her readers.
What I loved most about this book is the relatable content of growing up in an extended family home with particular benefactors from within the same family, calling the shots of how and where the less privileged ought to live and what they ‘ought’ to do.
The cross-cultural bond created between Tambudzai and Nyasha, the two cousins who grew up in different circumstances, is enviable. Towards the end of the book, Tambudzai’s transition in the course of the character and narrative development, coupled with interactions with Nyasha show her evolution into speaking, thinking and acting more like her westernized cousin. Tambudzai’s assimilation into the westernized culture with her entry into the Catholic school, Sacred Heart is an additive to her evolution.
‘Don’t forget, don’t forget, don’t forget. Nyasha, my mother, my friends. Always the same message. But why? If I forgot them, my cousin, my mother, my friends, I might as well forget myself.’
Tambudzai, excerpt from Nervous Conditions Tsitsi Dangarembga.
The irony is that Tambudzai began to forget. And forget she did.
Do let me know what you thought about the book in the comment section.
Cheers.
tcndangana
Nervous Conditions was one of the first books that made me fall in love with African Literature
Claire 'Word by Word'
I read this too a few years ago and absolutely loved it. I then had trouble finding the second book in the trilogy and not long after that the third book comes out 30 years after this brilliant debut. I would say Nervous Conditions is my favourite, in part because of her naivety, and that coming of age experience of discovery and learning and awakening to how the works has been arranged, how we can not unknow it.
CHAR
One of my favorites in African Literature