When a Crocodile Eats the Sun

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun is a story of the disintegration of a family, set against the collapse of a country.  Peter Godwin is living in Manhattan when he returns to Zimbabwe, his birthplace, having received the news that his father is dying.  He finds the former breadbasket of a continent entering a vortex of violent chaos and famine, prey to goon squads, presided over by a paranoid kleptocrasy.  But his parents, who emigrated from England after the Second World War, refuse to leave their home.  It is against this backdrop that Godwin discovers a fifty-year-old family secret, one which changes everything he thought he knew about his place in the world. 

When a crocodile eats the sun is how the Shona people of Zimbabwe describe a solar eclipse; the celestial crocodile, they say, briefly consumes the life-giving star as a warning that he is much displeased with man below - the very worst of omens.  Peter Godwin's powerful, moving memoir describes dark times and dark aspects of human behavior spanning two continents an half a century.  It is a searing portrayal of a son's effort to rescue his family an a family's struggle to belong in a a hostile land.

Soft cover, excellent condition.