This Mournable Body

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction 2020

Thirty years on from her acclaimed debut Nervous Conditions, considered one of the 100 Books that Shaped the World by the BBC, the award-winning Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga ‘has produced another masterpiece’ - New York Times

In this tense and psychologically charged novel, Tsitsi Dangarembga channels the hope and potential of one young girl and a fledgling nation to lead us on a journey to discover where lives go after hope has departed.

Here we meet Tambudzai, living in a run-down youth hostel in downtown Harare and anxious about her prospects after leaving a stagnant job. At every turn in her attempt to make a life for herself, she is faced with a fresh humiliation, until the painful contrast between the future she imagined and her daily reality ultimately drives her to a breaking point.