Product Description

Hailed by reviewers as "powerful," "haunting" and "a tour de force of personal journalism," When A Crocodile Eats the Sun is the unforgettable story of one man's struggle to discover his past and come to terms with his present. Award winning author and journalist Peter Godwin writes with pathos and intimacy about Zimbabwe's spiral into chaos and, along with it, his family's steady collapse. This dramatic memoir is a searing portrait of unspeakable tragedy and exile, but it is also vivid proof of the profound strength of the human spirit and the enduring power of love.

"In the tradition of Rian Malan and Philip Gourevitch, a deeply moving book about the unknowability of an Africa at once thrilling and grotesque. In elegant, elegiac prose, Godwin describes his father's illness and death in Zimbabwe against the backdrop of Mugabe's descent into tyranny. His parent's waning and the country's deterioration are entwined so that personal and political tragedy become inseparable, each more profound for the presence of the other" -- Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon

"A fascinating, heartbreaking, deeply illuminating memoir that has the shape and feel of a superb novel." -Kurt Anderson, author of Heydey

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #68757 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-10
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 8.25" h x 1.00" w x 5.50" l, .75 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In this exquisitely written, deeply moving account of the death of a father played out against the backdrop of the collapse of the southern African nation of Zimbabwe, seasoned journalist Godwin has produced a memoir that effortlessly manages to be almost unbearably personal while simultaneously laying bare the cruel regime of longstanding president Robert Mugabe. In 1996 when his father suffers a heart attack, Godwin returns to Africa and sparks the central revelation of the book—the father is Jewish and has hidden it from Godwin and his siblings. As his father's health deteriorates, so does Zimbabwe. Mugabe, self-proclaimed president for life, institutes a series of ill-conceived land reforms that throw the white farmers off the land they've cultivated for generations and consequently throws the country's economy into free fall. There's sadness throughout—for the death of the father, for the suffering of everyone in Zimbabwe (black and white alike) and for the way that human beings invariably treat each other with casual disregard. Godwin's narrative flows seamlessly across the decades, creating a searing portrait of a family and a nation collectively coming to terms with death. This is a tour de force of personal journalism and not to be missed. (Apr.)
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From Booklist
*Starred Review* When journalist Godwin, author of the memoir Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africa^B (1996), learns that his father is gravely ill, he flies home to Zimbabwe. Against the odds, his father makes a full recovery, and Godwin seizes the opportunity to get to know both his father and his country better. He finds Zimbabwe in a sad state in the late 1990s. Disgruntled veterans of the Rhodesian war and mobs of young men are terrorizing and sometimes killing white farmers and seizing their land with the tacit approval of Robert Mugabe's government. Political opposition to the violence only brings more bloodshed as politicians from the opposition party are subject to similar attacks. On the personal front, Godwin's mother reveals a surprising secret: his father's real name is Jerzy Goldfarb, and he is actually a Jew born in Poland before World War II. Godwin is as enraptured by his father's history--and its effect on his own sense of identity--as he is by tumultuous Zimbabwean politics. Godwin seamlessly blends a journalistic quest to get at the heart of the problems plaguing his home country with a family memoir in this absorbing, powerful book. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
Peter Godwin is an award winning author, journalist and film-maker. Born and raised in Zimbabwe, he studied at Cambridge and Ovford and became a foreign correspondent for the Sunday Times of London and BBC TV. Since moving to the US, he has written for National Geographic, the New York Times Magazine and Newsweek.