This is a tour de force of personal journalism and not to be missed. Godwin's narrative flows seamlessly across the decades, creating a searing portrait of a family and a nation collectively coming to terms with death. 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. 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. But it is also a vivid portrait of the profound strength of the human spirit and the enduring power of love. As his father's health deteriorates, so does Zimbabwe. When a Crocodile Eats the Sun is a stirring memoir of the disintegration of a family set against the collapse of a country. 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. 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.
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