This Mournable Body

About this book

Anxious about her prospects after leaving a stagnant job Tambudzai finds herself living in a run-down youth hostel in downtown Harare. For reasons that include her grim financial prospects and her age she moves to a widows boarding house and eventually finds work as a biology teacher. But at every turn in her attempt to make a life for herself she is faced with a fresh humiliation until the painful contrast between the future she imagined and her daily reality ultimately drives her to a breaking point. In This Mournable Body Tsitsi Dangarembga examines how the hope and potential of a young girl and a fledgling nation can sour over time and become a bitter and floundering struggle for survival.