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When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa

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If anyone wants insight into the plight of white Africans, I would unhesitatingly point them to Peter Godwin's two books (this one and "Mukiwa"). As someone who was raised in Kenya, then spent time in Rhodesia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, but nearly 30 years ago bade farewell to Africa and have watched with sadness but without surprise as the continent has sunk deeper into crisis, his books ring many familiar bells. I long ago cut my last psychological links with Africa, because the Kenya and Rhodesia I knew no longer exists; Godwin's book is a sad reminder.

It is easy for armchair critics to point accusing fingers at colonialism, and to say that whites created many of their own problems, and bequeathed to Africa many of the problems it faces today, but it's not as simple as that. Whatever white Rhodesians did, they did not deserve to be treated the way Mugabe has treated them in the last decade. Black Zimbabweans are by far the biggest losers, though, have suffered on a far greater level, and must regret the manner in which their country - once the great hope of Africa - has been driven into the ground by the venal and short-sighted thuggery of Mugabe and his acolytes.

But it isn't just Africa or Zimbabwe - this is also a story about how bad leadership can lead to widespread social collapse, and bring out the very worst in human nature. Godwin's story about the way his family's maid Mavis was encouraged to turn against them is symbolic of how easy it is for even the best human souls to be turned by fear and intimidation. The case of Zimbabwe shows that the line between stability and anarchy, between security and insecurity, is often very fine.

The story of Godwin's family has been repeated far too many times among white Africans, and there is an additional level of sadness in the way in which his father escaped Nazism and invested most of his life in Rhodesia, only to end his life surrounded by the horrors that now afflict Zimbabwe. Worst of all is the way in which Africa's leaders have failed to turn against Mugabe, or to criticize him.

I still have friends and relatives in Zimbabwe (the doctor who gave Godwin's mother a new hip also operated on my brother, who ultimately died of peritonitis), and I hear that many of them think "When a Crocodile Eats the Sun" is an enjoyable read. Many are clearly in a state of denial - I read it in two sittings, and while it may have been a deeply compelling read, the story it tells is tragic. It mystifies me that those whites who have the option of leaving stay on in a society where death and misery are almost literally over the other side of the garden hedge. Godwin has a knack of letting the story speak for itself, and of avoiding making judgements or of bathing in self-pity. This and "Mukiwa" together will stand as testament to the plight of white Africans. I've read "Mukiwa" several times since it was published, and will certainly do the same with "When a Crocodile Eats the Sun". No-one who wants to understand the experience of white Africans will want to miss either of these books.

There is nothing superficial about this carefully detailed yet succinct memoir. It is a first hand expose of the Mugabe regime which has made Zimbabwe "the world's fastest shrinking economy" by looting the white farmers' land. It is a searing indictment of the corrupt regime and its minions. All is seen through the experiences of the author's parents, an elderly English couple who quietly suffer increasing hardships in the middle of a crazed situation. This is a country where innocent people can be gunned down for no reason at all. The author's older sister was killed just that way in an ambush at the age of 27, a few weeks before her wedding. Yet the parents insist on remaining in Zimbabwe. This may seem inexplicable, but I know many elderly people who would remain in their dangerous neighborhoods in American cities while around them was crime and devastation, rather than uproot themselves. It's not really that different, only far worse, because the government in Zimbabwe encourages and instigates the mayhem that afflicts the country. It would not be "spoiling" to reveal, as have the reviews, that the author discovers his father is not originally English, but a Polish Jew who has concealed his origins from his children. It is to the credit of the author that he does not flinch from recording his own repulsion at being a "hybrid", half Jewish. For years the white population was privileged in Rhodesia, waited upon by the poor blacks, as one of the photos captures. This does not justify what is being done to these elderly whites now, they do not deserve to spend their later years in a collapsed economy where pensions and life insurance are worthless, and their few possessions are always in danger of being hijacked by envious interlopers. In fact, their lives are in constant danger. Peter Godwin, the author, has written an invaluable memoir and expose. Zimbabwe is in anarchy, and living there must be a Hegelian nightmare.

This book will break your heart with its sparely narrated stories of individuals of all colors and classes in Zimbabwe. Events of great irony, courage, tragedy and humor are related with understatement that increases our sympathy and our outrage at the injustices being done to both black and white since 1980 under Mugabe's rule.

I picked up this book because a branch of my family settled in Southern Rhodesia sometime during the fifties; my cousin and her husband died there, as did my aunt who emigrated there from Virginia after her husband's death in the eighties. Communications from them were brief and free of political comment. I once asked why they did not write more and was told, "The mail is censored and it would be dangerous." I knew that they were moderates politically and were not in favor of the conservative Ian Smith government which determinedly maintained white minority rule from 1965 to 1980. I had no idea why this would be so dangerous, but now I know.

The book covers the years between July 1996, when Peter goes back to Zimbabwe because of his father's failing health, and February 2004, when his father dies. Only during this illness does Peter learn that his father was born Kazio Goldfarb, a Polish Jew who met and married his mother in England after serving in World War II, and who emigrated to Rhodesia in 1949 as George Godwin, "a new man...fleeing racial persecution and war, mayhem and genocide." We come to love Peter's parents George and Helen. They are honest, fair, thoughtful and loving people who show unbelievable courage and inventiveness in dealing with declining health in a society that is sinking into chaos. Whenever things look dreadful, Helen makes fun of the danger by flapping her hands beside her ears in an imitation of a "box elephant" - when an elephant charges with ears flapping (like the flaps of a cardboard box), he's just trying to scare you. You don't have to worry unless the elephant's ears are flat against his head! Black humor (no pun intended) threads delightfully through this book which is so full of sadness - much of the humor from verbal snapshots of Peter's parents.

Peter Godwin interweaves family history with much fascinating information about African/Rhodesian/Zimbabwean history. While reading it, I kept putting little markers in for things I wanted to remember, but by the end I had a forest of markers and wanted an index! That drove me to the Lonely Planet guide to Africa to get a thumbnail sketch of Zimbabwe's history and then to Wikipedia to look up Zimbabwe, Ian Smith, and Sir Garfield Todd. But you do not need this background to realize what is going on in Zimbabwe in the 21st century. Godwin witnesses many of the "land seizures" that began in 2000, in which productive commercial farmers who employed thousands of farm workers were attacked by gangs of war veterans (whose compensation fund had been raided by government fat cats). The senseless destruction of irrigation systems, animals, equipment, and people, with the help of the government, has brought Zimbabwe from a productive country to a wasteland of agricultural incompetence and poverty. Anyone who supports the opposition to Mugabe is labeled a racist and in need of conversion to the proper point of view, by murder, beating, or starvation if necessary. Shortages of food and fuel are common, except at the few outlets for those who work for Mugabe's government - who fuel their SUVs to drive out to their "farms' where they sit on their verandas drinking cocktails and surveying the cropless land.

Yes, the seeds of the "politics of envy" which fueled these attacks were sown years earlier under Cecil Rhodes and fertilized under Ian Smith. But Mugabe could still rise above his own greed and lust for power to put the interests of all his people first - Ndebele as well as Shona, white as well as black - as his regime first promised to do. He could recall the advice of an earlier prime minister, Sir Garfield Todd (expelled from office as a dangerous liberal when he supported interracial marriage and majority rule). Godwin believes that if Todd had remained in office, the years of war could perhaps have been avoided and blacks and whites could have cooperated. Perhaps this is overly idealistic, given the conservatism of many of that generation. However, Todd gave Mugabe his first chance as a teacher, supported the guerrillas during the liberation war, freely donated his land to the war vets, only to be rewarded with house arrest and stripped of his citizenship when he dared to criticize Mugabe. When he died in 2002, he was still hopeful for Zimbabwe's future. Long before, in 1958, he said, "We must make it possible for every individual to lead the good life, to win a place in the sun. We are in danger of becoming a race of fear-ridden neurotics - we who live in the finest country on earth."

Peter Godwin quotes the opinions of several living Zimbabweans:
"We don't want these extra people." - Didymus Mutasa, a senior Zimbabwean government minister.

"We've gone from bread bin to dustbin. Mugabe's persecuting his own people. But our time will come. Every dog has his day." - Tapera, municipality foreman, Pioneer Cemetery, Harare.

Zimbabwe may be the last century's "cause" when it comes to needy countries - but, like Haiti, it does not deserve to be forgotten. Please read this book!

This is an intensely personal memoir, mostly occurring during the last decade and about the author's family, his origins and his country.

It is really three concurrent stories - the story of a man trying to take care of his elderly parents from half way around the world; the unexpected discovery of old family secrets and coming to terms with new origins; and a first hand account of the collapse, or perhaps better described as the `Decent Into Hell', of a country as it plunges into misery and madness.

The indigenous people of Zimbabwe, the Shonas, refer to a solar eclipse as `when a crocodile eats the sun' and consider it a very bad omen. In the course of the book, there are two solar eclipses in the county, as events live up to the superstition. Besides the very personal considerations and traumas, the book reminds us of the now typical events surrounding Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe; the farm takeovers and their horrible consequences as the economy implodes, all services breaking down and leading to poverty and starvation throughout what was once one of the most promising countries in Africa.

It is a book which gives one considerable pause for thought.

This is the best in a series of books I have read recently having to do with Africa up close and personal. I have recommended it to everyone I know, and pushed my book club into reading it, too. Mr Godwin is a particularly fine writer, with the descriptive powers of a poet. Finding that in a memoir that is also gripping and exciting is a potent combination. After reading this book I backed up, as it were, and read his earlier work "Mukiwa", which is also a fine read, and helps illuminate the later book, like finding out something about a good friend you never had known which makes later behavior more understandable. Nevertheless, When a Crocodile eats the Sun" stands on its own quite nicely and will stay on my list to recommend for a long time, just as it has stayed on my mind.

This is several books rolled into one. It is the account of a baby-boomer who is watching his parents age. Unfortunately, he now lives in NYC and they in Zimbabwe, making the difficult care even more difficult. It is also the account of the terribly sad and wasteful demise of Zimbabwe under the corrupt rule of Rober Mugambe. It is also the tale of a native Zimbabwean who loves his home country as it crumbles more and more with each day and with each of his visits. Last, it is a family memoir.

The author is a baby-boomer who was born and raised in Zimbabwe. His parents, both white, emigrated to Zimbabwe as young married professionals and made it their home. They have lived there, invested their personal and professional lives there and lost a daughter in the revolution there so they refuse to leave as the corrupt government's corruption grows like an incurable cancer. The regime's minions are taking everything owned by whites first and then starving the entire population while denting the people all necessities of life. They rule by terror and corruption.

As a free lance journalist, the author gets assignments in the country so he can keep up on the news and be with his parents. This also allows him to educate the reader on what has happened in Zimbabwe - which is eye-opening - from AIDS (his mother was a physician) to land "reforms" (theft) and terrorizing the population; first white, then everyone who even appears to oppose the regime.

Along the way, he also learns that his father was a displaced immigrant as a youth, which adds another poignant layer to the memoir.

This conglomeration of memoir, family history and expose of Zimbabwe is breath-taking in every facet. Well-written it kept my rapt attention all the way through. The author's understated style only adds force to his parents' demise due to aging and his country's demise due to an absolutely corrupt regime. The aging parents issues that face every boomer, combined with the country's crumbling and terror make this a searingly poignant memoir.

Highly, highly recommended.

For someone who knew Zimbabwe in the past this is a very painful book to read. The deterioration of the country described is simply devastating. Rhodesia in the sixties was a good country for whites. But, for Africans this was a land of apartheid modeled on the laws and society of South Africa. The author grew up in that decade, and his parents made sure he learned to local Shona language fluently. Godwin has described these days in "Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africa." The seventies were a time of increasingly violent and bloody war, as the small white minority tried to defend their privileged way of oppression. Godwin's second book, "Rhodesians Never Die" recounts this period and the death of his sister. After liberation, for a short time it looked as if Zimbabwe would be the success story of Africa. The economy grew and life was good for a time.

This is Godwin's third book which shows the bitter destruction of the country as President Mugabe uses violence to keep himself and his goons in power. As he made himself a dictator, the commercially successful farms were taken over by mobs, production declined and famine stalks the land. This is the personal story of one man, it is extremely well written, and leaves no doubt about the fate of the black and white people.

The book closes with a slight note of hope in February 2004. But the pain, Mugabe's dictatorship, the inflation, the famine, and the killing goes on. Today Zimbabwe is compared with North Korea or Burma in its devastation. (Newsweek, 18 June 2007, "Digging a Grave for Zimbabwe")

This book is probably the most objective, non-political account of the effect events in Zimbabwe have on ordinary people, with nary a nod to self-pity even though there is ample reason for it, that is available in the shops today. In South Africa we read about these events in newpapers, heard live reports on radio (very little on TV) but most profoundly, heard the stories from the mouths of the victims - both white and black - who have fled south. But those people were homeless, abused, stripped of possessions, often leaving murdered family behind, and their words were understandably filled with anger, fear, despair, hopelessness, and yes, hate.

The author's background as a journalist enables him to report the atrocities calmly without the emotional distress he most certainly felt, and therefore, this book is so untouchably credible. The fact that he has chosen to interwove the story with the discovery of his surprising heritage, the honest and painful rendering of watching his parents grow old, and the unsuccessful struggle to break through to his father's emotions, strengthens the book in so many ways. This is a real story, about real people, with real suffering and the irony is, these things are still happening, only more terribly.

Drive down the main street of Harare (Salisbury) and you will see affluence - new 4x4's (SUV's), Mercedes's, young men in business suits and silk shirts hurrying from one glasscovered skyrise to the next, leather briefcase swinging in his hand. Drive up into the hills and you will see the mansions, even by American standards, with the impeccable lawns, the palms, the blood red Erythrina trees. Hard to believe that the events of this book did not bring about prosperity. Do yourself a favour. Drive into the country. Take the dirt roads and look. Of course you won't be able to get fuel, so perhaps come to Johannesburg, and talk to the Zimbabweans streaming through the river east and west of Mussina. Then ask yourself some questions about basic human rights, international diplomacy, and parallels to South Africa........

If you don't read any other book about Africa, read this one.

My husband and I sponsor a student from Zimbabwe through the International Students Program at M.I.T. She almost never talks about life in Zimbabwe so when I saw the book reviewed in the New York Times book section, I decided to learn more about the country. I had no idea daily life was so difficult. Inflation is rampant at 1800% (that is NOT a misprint) and Peter Godwin who lived in Zimbabwe growing up makes the political chaos very real. The book is easy to understand and the characters are real, and readers care about them. This book should be included in high school and college courses on international studies. It's a powerful book and deserves to be read.

Once you've been to Africa, things you read, or movies you watch about Africa seem more interesting. You just get it. When we were in Botswana recently, all the locals could talk about was how screwed up Zimbabwe was, how the increase in crime was because of illegal immigration of Zimbabweans, and what a mess Robert Mugabe had made of things. What makes Peter Godwin's book so interesting is that he sets the downfall of his native country, Zimababwe, against the slow descent into infirmary of his parents, most notably his father. Everytime he visits them he sees not only how bad they are getting along but how bad the country is doing. What was once a paradise has now become a corrupt dictatorship. Where once there was opportunity, now there is only cronyism. It is a sad and poignant read, but very, very interesting.