NERVOUS CONDITIONS

298pp., paperback, Reprint, London, (1998) 2021

Winner of the 1989 Commonwealth Writers Prize.

First novel in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s trilogy, which includes The Book of Not (2006) and This Mournable Body (2020). This Mournable Body was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

Set in Zimbabwe in the 1960s. Thirteen-year-old Tambudzai Sigauke is longing to escape the confines of her rural village and imagines she's found a way when her wealthy uncle offers to sponsor her education at his mission school.

"... one of the 20th century’s most significant works of African literature” The New York Times

"Many good novels written by men have come out of Africa, but few by Black women. This is the novel we have been waiting for ... it will become a classic." Doris Lessing

Tsitsi Dangarembga was born and brought up in Zimbabwe. She studied medicine and psychology before turning to writing full-time and becoming the first Black woman in Zimbabwe to publish a novel in English. She lives in Zimbabwe.