Customer Reviews

Harare North

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This book is well written and the fact that it is written in a Zimbabwe accent makes it even more of a pleasure to read. The picture the author paints is very telling and it reflects on an unnoticed facet to life in London. However, overall, it is not a great book and the ending is rather dry.

The unnamed narrator of this debut novel emigrates to London, or Harare North, from Zimbabwe, where he served as one of President Mugabe's Green Bombers, the youth attack squads that terrorized the regime's opponents. He needs US$5000 to buy back his freedom from local officials, after he is caught beating up an opposition party official.

Upon his arrival in London, he is granted temporary asylum, but does not have working papers. After staying with a cousin and his wife, he moves in with a childhood friend living in an abandoned house in Brixton, along with several other countrymen trying to make it. He eventually obtains work in the underground industry, where the best paying jobs are held by BBCs, or British Buttock Cleaners, who look after "old people that poo their pants every hour". The daily internal and external stressors on the narrator and his housemates take a large toll on their physical and mental health, and each one is ultimately left to rely on himself to survive and to avoid a descent into crime or madness.

[Harare North] is a dark comedy that becomes a suffocating and dizzying ride that the reader takes along with the narrator, which gives an instructive glimpse into the lives of illegal immigrants living under the radar of the average city resident, whether in London or any other international city.

Sorry, but just because a book emanates from a unique subaltern perspective does not make it worth reading. The plot was meandering and pointless while the writing was, at times, so bad that it was hard to concentrate. The book is not worth reading let along buying.

I bought this book based on some other reviews I had read elsewhere and maybe I shouldn't have. The story, from the much I read, was quite interesting. It followed the life of an asylum seeker, newly arrived in England from Zimbabwe, and trying to find his footing in this new place and culture, and at the same time become a permanent resident. He ends up moving out of his cousin's place and in with another group of immigrants. That was where I stopped. The narrative was in such a tortuous narrative that I got a headache each time I picked it up, and before I could finish a couple of pages.

This novel is a downer because of the sad ending. It is interesting since we are in the head of an immigrant attempting to survive in "Harare North," i.e. London.