Nervous Conditions 3 Ed [Paperback]

Tsitsi Dangarembga (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 9, 2002

This story exlpores the alienation of two young African girls - Nyasha, brought up in England and now a stranger amongst her own people, and Tamba, who leaves her village for the pricey mission school.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Tambu, an adolescent living in colonial Rhodesia of the '60s, seizes the opportunity to leave her rural community to study at the missionary school run by her wealthy, British-educated uncle. With an uncanny and often critical self-awareness, Tambu narrates this skillful first novel by a Zimbabwe native. Like many heroes of the bildungsroman, Tambu, in addition to excelling at her curriculum, slowly reaches some painful conclusions--about her family, her proscribed role as a woman, and the inherent evils of colonization. Tambu often thinks of her mother, "who suffered from being female and poor and uneducated and black so stoically." Yet, she and her cousin, Nyasha, move increasingly farther away from their cultural heritage. At a funeral in her native village, Tambu admires the mourning of the women, "shrill, sharp, shiny, needles of sound piercing cleanly and deeply to let the anguish in, not out." In many ways, this novel becomes Tambu's keening--a resonant, eloquent tribute to the women in her life, and to their losses.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"I was not sorry when my brother died." So begins Tambu, narrator of Nervous Conditions, as she looks back on her childhood. Tambu grew up on her family's impoverished farm within a traditional native society; her determination to receive an education, however, brings her into contact with British colonialism in the form of mission schools. As an African woman, Tambu comes to understand that oppression has many forms; it is never simple and solutions are hard to come by. The patriarchal traditions of her own culture oppress women, while British colonial education takes native children from their parents, literally and figuratively. Tambu grows maize to earn her school fees because there is only enough family money for her brother, only to have her brother steal her produce and give it to friends. She tells of her cousin Nyasha, raised in England and brought back to Zimbabwe; unable to live in either culture, she self-destructively turns her struggle inward. Tambu talks of how she herself has changed. Despite the pain and oppression that she has witnessed, Tambu loves her country. Bitterly, with barely repressed irony, she points out wrongs, and then lovingly describes a pathway, a pool, the face of a woman. A strong, intelligent, loving girl/woman, Tambu is a character to stay with and care about, even - perhaps especially - as the conditions she describes enrage us. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. -- From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Erica Bauermeister --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Seal Press (WA) (February 9, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580050638
• ISBN-13: 978-1580050630
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #265,146 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Tsitsi Dangarembga lived and studied in both England and Germany before returning to her native Zimbabwe. She is not only a novelist and playwright, but also a noted film director. She currently is working on the third novel in the trilogy that began with Nervous Conditions and continues in The Book of Not.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars powerful!, January 18, 2000

By 

Thabo Makeleni (Johannesburg, South Africa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nervous Conditions: A Novel (Paperback)

I've always considered myself to be very understanding of women, especially women of the same stature and situation as the female characters of the book, but the book did expand my understanding of their condition. When I read the book I saw my mother who grew up in South Africa under situations similar to Tambu's. Although Tambu manages to rise from her condition with something on her hands, an education that is, most of these women get cought on the situation and they never escape it. I could relate to the book because I've seen how women are expected to conform to a male dominated community where they are not expected to question the men in their lives. As I've lived and am still living in modern South Africa for my whole 19 years I've seen and still see the Nyasha's that have to deal with the same men as in the book and still expected to be modern women. I found the book to be very true of the African women's situation and saw a reflection of somebody I know in Jeremiah. Here is a man who had to live in his brothers shadow for all his life. He is poor and lazy, and the only thing that he knows he has control over are the women in his life. I am not trying to sympathise with the character but his situation on the book should be understood. As a modern African man I've learnt to treat women as equals and although that may be there still exist a group of men who can't handle the truth. Tis book will help a lot of people in understanding how women, especially in rural communities, had to live and still live in Southern Africa. A powerful book and a great asset to African literature!

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Burden of Being, January 23, 2005

By 

The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers (RAWSISTAZ.com and BlackBookReviews.net) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nervous Conditions (Paperback)

The troubles and turmoil of life often present us with guiding burdens, mountains that not only seem but are truly impossible to climb, and boundaries put in place to check even the strongest of wills. These mountains, boulders, and impassable rivers serve as a standard, a ceiling and a foundation; created by the society in which we take our very breath. So when we find ourselves stuck in the very system that we create, who can we blame? Who can we turn to for rescuing? These are the very questions that narrator Tambudzai learns to ask in Tsitsi Dangarembga's novel NERVOUS CONDITIONS.

Throughout her young adult life, Tambudzai witnesses many cultural tendencies of her people and struggles internally with what she is being taught versus what she observes and believes to be right. Aside from her Rhodesian homeland being colonized by the British, she also wrestles with getting an education in a country where an education is seen as wasted on women. The role of men over women in this very patriarchal society serves as the backbone of NERVOUS CONDITIONS and operates as a means to compare different women's struggle to survive that cast-iron system. Through Tambudzai's eyes, readers see how her cousin Nyasha rebels against her father - the family leader, proclaimed prince, and headmaster of the school at the Mission. Readers see the difference between Tambudzai's subservient mother and her mother's defiant sister. We also see how this society treats a woman just as educated as her husband. Following Tambudzai as she progresses towards higher learning and gains a deeper understanding of the world that surrounds her, literary audiences discover just how suffocating it is to deal with the burdens of simply surviving.

Many themes course through NERVOUS CONDITIONS making it an excellent novel for discussion and evaluation. Aside from the obvious men/women theme, a few other issues in the novel are the dangers and benefits of colonization, the necessity of education, and Christianity vs. traditional African religions. I also liked the importance of food and the role it played throughout the novel, especially at the end with Nyasha's rebellion. Exceptionally written, Dangarembga's novel, although about the learning period during a young teenager's life, is not child's play. This is a very adult novel filled with mature situations and intellectual food for meditation. The characters are well developed and the author takes time to draw scenes for her audience. You can see the poverty when she shows it to you just as well as you can see the surplus when it exists. Never have I read a novel that so intensely and effectively relays the burdens some people bear up under to simply be.

Reviewed by Natasha T.
of The RAWSISTAZ™ Reviewers

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoroughly Riveting, December 8, 2004

By 

Shelter N. Dziya (Galveston, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nervous Conditions 3 Ed (Paperback)

I read this book for the first time when I was in Zimbabwe for an upper level African Literature class and thought I would die! As a young African woman I can totally relate to everything that Nyasha went through and having relatives like Tambu I foud her character completely believable. I have heard from a person who knew the author and her dad that the book is based on her life...don't quote me on this. But in that case it is even more impressive. I totally disagree with people namely one who said the book was flat and inconsistent. Things like this actually do happen and people do actually live their lives like this and this is Tsitsi's take on these issues and hers alone. I don't know, I could go on and on. I have read this book 7 times and have gotten some of my really good friends to read it just so they understand me and my culture. I might suggest we read it for my book club.