Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter by J. Nozipo Maraire

From the Publisher

Written as a letter from a Zimbabwean mother to her daughter, a student at Harvard, J. Nozipo Maraire evokes the moving story of a mother reaching out to her daughter to share the lessons life has taught her and bring the two closer than ever before. Interweaving history and memories, disappointments and dreams, Zenzele tells the tales of Zimbabwe's struggle for independence and the men and women who shaped it: Zenzele's father, an outspoken activist lawyer; her aunt, a schoolteacher by day and secret guerrilla fighter by night; and her cousin, a maid and a spy.

Rich with insight, history, and philosophy, Zenzele is a powerful and compelling story that is both revolutionary and revelatory--the story of one life that poignantly speaks of all lives.

Publishers Weekly

"Through an eloquent, book-length letter, an African mother imparts wisdom to her Harvard-bound daughter in Maraire's affecting first novel," said PW last year. (May)

Library Journal

Maraire, a Harvard-educated native of Zimbabwe now living in the United States, has written a beautifully poignant first novel about what it means to be a woman in Africa. The novel is written in the form of a letter from a mother to her daughter, Zenzele, who is just beginning her studies at Harvard. The mother writes of her girlhood in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe's colonial name), the struggle for Zimbabwe's independence, and her hopes and fears for the next generation. She has watched villagers send the best of her generation to Europe or America for an education, with the hope that they would return with their newly learned skills to better the lives of their compatriots. Instead, she is saddened when they do not return home to live but come back only for visits, seeming to have lost all remnants of African culture. The mother offers her own stories in hopes that her daughter, while creating herself, will never forget whence she came. Highly recommended for women's studies collections and to general readers seeking an intimate view of another life.-Debbie Bogenschutz, Cincinnati Technical Coll.

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