The story follows Peter Godwin’s life as a white boy in Rhodesia and his return to Zimbabwe as an adult.
In 1963 when the author was just six years old he witnessed the murder of his neighbour by a band of African guerrillas known as the Crocodile Gang. Two years later the country declared independence from Britain, popularly known as Unilateral Declaration of Independence, (UDI).
Godwin grows up in the shadow of a disappearing British Empire and in a land stalked by the spectre of war. But that reality was still in the future.
A White Boy's Magical Rhodesia
As a child life seems magical for Peter Godwin. The son of a government medical officer and and a chief engineer with the forestry department, Peter learns about the fascinating world around him on the rounds he takes with his mother on medical duty. The young boy serves as an unofficial assistant to his mother during post-mortems and vaccinations.
When he is not accompanying his mother, Peter is left in the company of his African maid who takes him to lively vaPositori sect meetings. He also learns a lot about African culture and life from the African staff in his parents’ household, including the gardener and the cook.
The Rhodesian War
Godwin does not enjoy his first primary boarding school at Melsetter. He is relieved when he is transferred to Carmel College in Umtali, up in the mountains of the beautiful Eastern Highlands.
But his joy is short lived. The war against white rule in Rhodesia begins in earnest and escalates. Unfortunately, it would not be the last time that it impacts on his personal life.
A Spellbinding Memoir
Mukiwa is a great, vividly descriptive and evocative memoir that opens the world of Rhodesia as seen in the eyes of a white boy child in the closing chapters of the country’s tragic but short history. It is an honest, funny and poignant memoir of a white child who becomes a man in Rhodesia amidst the chaos of war. It reads like a thriller but is very informative.
About Peter Godwin
Peter Godwin is an ward-winning journalist and co-author of the history of the UDI, Rhodesians Never Die. He was born and raised in Rhodesia and did his military service in Matabeleland during the war against Zimbabwean nationalists. He studied at Cambridge and Oxford. He was a foreign correspondent for the Sunday Times. He lives in New York.
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Mukiwa was first published in 1996 by Picador an imprint of Macmillan General Books. ISBN 978330339834. Price £8.99 paperback edition.
Farai Muchemwa - I am medically qualified and worked as a general practioner in Zimbabwe for five years. I have an uncompleted Master of Public Health ...
