Book Reviews:
The Book Reviews cover fiction and non-fiction set in Southern Africa. A few select works are set elsewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The focus is on Zimbabwe and, to a lesser extent, its neighbours. Due to its strategic location between industrialised South Africa and the less developed countries to the north, it makes a fascinating setting for any writer’s imagination. The period from 1890 to 1980 saw Rhodesia transition from a wilderness to a modern economy. Zimbabwe was relatively stable for the next fifteen years. But since then, because of politics, it has seen events take an unbelievable course. The country has suffered a catastrophic fall from its modern, emerging state to one of near destruction.
The machinations of a desperate dictator to hold on to power at all costs, brought the country to its knees. An incompetent government made up of ill-qualified, sycophantic ministers was not up to running a country. Extreme nepotism made circumstances even worse, and Zimbabwe’s unfortunate citizens paid the price for the dictator’s misrule. The goings-on in the country have been absurdly comical, and at other times, brutal and sad. A new president replaced the dictator in November 2017, and so the story continues.
News and Updates:
News and Updates may include posts of interest to those who love Southern Africa, its people and wildlife. But for more immediate and frequent posts, scroll down to my Facebook page, or find me here.
Conclusion:
Visitors to this page might discover books and authors they have not before read. I hope to promote the works of lesser known authors of stories set in Southern or Sub-Saharan Africa. Events in Zimbabwe Rhodesia and South Africa led many people to migrate to various other countries around the world. Books set in Southern Africa can now pop up anywhere. Self-publishing, E-books, POD (print on demand) and online marketing emerged to aid the growth in expatriate Southern African writers.
I love long-distance train travel. It’s a little like looking through your hotel window and seeing ever-changing scenery flow past. At the beginning and end of each day, nature paints beautiful sunrises and sunsets. A yellow moon on the horizon […]
For most people today, cruising is a resort holiday. The TV series, The Love Boat, was a glamourised forerunner of what goes on in passenger ships sailing the high seas. As with air travel, cruising soon became accessible to most […]
Aren’t people funny? I know I am. After years of anticipating school holidays and that legendary last day of school, when it finally arrived, I was slow to leave. My four and a half months of national service in the […]
One privilege of growing up in Zimbabwe Rhodesia was the proximity of the bush. At one point, I lived with my cousins in Willsgrove, between the Hotel Rio and Waterford, less than a fifteen-minute drive from Bulawayo’s CBD. In those […]
Education or training always seems to come up in the conversation when I meet someone who I haven’t seen since the old days in Rhodesia. Why is that? Is it because we’ve seen the education standards in other countries and […]
As the Northern Hemisphere heads into winter and the Southern into summer, the minds of many Zimbabwe Rhodesians turn to home. Scattered around the globe, we miss many things about our old country. These include our friends, the places we […]
Seven a.m. on a Monday morning, I waited at Bulawayo station for the Salisbury train to arrive. The army bus that would take us to Llewellyn Barracks stood ready to collect the latest batch of young men called up for […]
Before colour TV, there was black and white. And before that, there was cinema. It’s surprising how, only weeks or a couple of months after their cinema release, many films today are available on free-to-air or subscription-based TV services. You […]
On our first day in the army, the stores staff issued us uniforms. Some items required a little work. The shapeless, bottle-green, felt berets had a leather trim around the edge, holding the long, narrow-ribbon drawstring. A couple of guys […]
In the Rhodesian Bush War’s later stages, white men to age 60 were called-up for military service in the army or police reserve. Younger men up to the age of 35 could expect to spend alternating 6 weeks in and […]
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